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Millions across India battle crippling floods
NEW DELHI, June 18, 2008: Millions of people across five Indian states were today battling to cope with crippling floods that submerged their houses and fields and threw road and rail services out of gear in some areas.
The picture everywhere was the same: people perched precariously on the rooftops of their huts, vast open fields under a sheet of water, roads and embankments being washed away by the swirling waters and trains stranded at railway stations. The authorities in the affected states were working round the clock to rescue the marooned and provide relief to those rendered homeless ~ with the Indian Army being called out in West Bengal to assist in the effort and asked to remain on the standby in other states.
Some 1.6 million people have been affected in West Bengal, with five people having died. Train services have been paralysed due to the ravaging waters.
In Orissa, flash floods triggered by heavy rains in the past four days have hit about half a million people in four northern districts, submerged thousands of acres of land, snapped electricity supply and disrupted road and train services.
In Jharkhand, torrential rain for the last three days has badly affected life in many parts of the state. Two people have died in house collapses and the state government today asked the army to remain on alert.
In Assam, thousands of people were still in relief camps even though the floodwaters were receding. The authorities also sounded a health alert to prevent outbreak of any waterborne diseases. In Uttar Pradesh, a flood alert was sounded today in over 30 districts of including Lakhimpur Kheri, Faizabad, Gonda and
Bahraich, following incessant rains. n IANS
Water resources information system
approved
New Delhi, June 12, 2008: The Indian government Thursday approved of a Rs.34 billion scheme to develop a
water resources information system over the next three years. 'The objective of the scheme is to collect the necessary information from
various sources, ensure observation of important data and to develop an
information system on water resources,' Finance Minister P. Chidambaram told
reporters after a meeting of the cabinet committee on economic affairs chaired
by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
'The objective is to make available all relevant information about water
resources and their utilization for organisations, agencies and individuals
associated with the planning, development, management and research in the area,'
the minister explained. 'Except for the sensitive and classified data, all the information will also be
in the public domain,' Chidambaram added. 'It will also be of benefit in
assessing water availability and utilization with the help of reliable data and information in a scientific manner.
'This will result in better planning, design and management and faster
resolution of water related disputes,' the minister said. The scheme will be fully operational by the end of 2011, he added.
Lalu wants to use Indian rail network for water
Kuala Lumpur, May 18 (PTI) After scripting a turnaround in the fortunes of Indian Railways, Union Minister Lalu Prasad has now envisioned the prospect of channelising surplus water from various rivers through large pipes along the country's 24,000 kms railway tracks.
"The railways is like an empire, it is a league apart, its vast network crisscrossing across the
country can help the government in water management," the minister, who was here to witness the signing of a railway double tracking contract awarded to public sector company IRCON by the Malaysian government, said.
He noted that surplus water from rivers during seasonal floods flowed to adjoining countries and states causing havoc.
"If we are able to connect all rivers like a garland from various points along its path and let it flow through pipes along the tracks, it can be diverted to areas which need water," he told
PTI.
While projects like dam constructions have lead to major protests in the past as they involve
acquiring of land from native people, this process will not require land acquisition as Railways owns the land alongside its running tracks, he said. "We can float global tenders to invest in laying the pipes and sell water at a nominal cost, this can be an additional source of revenue for the railways," said Lalu, who is now known the world over as the man who revived Indian railways without slashing jobs or hiking fares.
-PTI
Centre keen to supply arsenic-free water in West Bengal
Behrampore, March 18, 2008 (PTI): The Centre is determined to supply arsenic-free water in the country whereever it is detected in ground water above the permissible limit, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee said on Sunday.
Mukherjee was speaking after the inauguration of a arsenic treatment plant at Majjhampur in
Beldanga bloc 1, 40 km from here. He said that the Centre would also help the state government check erosion of the Ganga in Murshidabad district. Speaking on the occasion, West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadev Bhattacharjee said that of the state's total 314 blocks, 79 had been arsenic affected.
Pepsi to replace packs of Aquafina with new labels
NEW DELHI, March 17, 2008: Starting March end, the soft drink company PepsiCo India will replace all existing packs of
Aquafina, its packaged water brand, with new labels. The labels will announce that by next year, PepsiCo India will be a positive water balance company. In other words, the company says it will save and replenish more water in its plants and communities than the total water it uses in the country.
The pack labels will carry details of the company’s ‘replenish and restore our water’ message. With the objective of involving the consumer, the pack urges the consumer to partner with the company to ‘use water wisely so it could be enjoyed by future generations’.
Soft drink companies have, in the past, been accused of ground water depletion in few Indian states. Coca-Cola India, in fact, had to close down its plant in Kerala following protests by local authorities. PepsiCo is hopeful that the communication through packs will help boost its public image.
The company says it has been working on water community water replenishment over the past five years by conserving and recycling water usage within its manufacturing processes, constructing rain and roof water harvesting structures, rolling out community water projects, and hosting watershed management programmes in partnership with Teri. PepsiCo says it has reduced water usage in its manufacturing plants by over 60%, and that it has saved 2 billion litres of water in the process.
Source: The Economic Times
Access to water is a fundamental human right.
March
03, 2008: The community of Mehdiganj and Coca-Cola affected communities in India are working with communities, elected officials, local, state and national government officials, people’s movements, non-governmental organizations and international groups to challenge the eroding right to water and asserting the fundamental human right to water.
The conference on the right to water will be held on March 28 and 29, which will be followed by a march and demonstration against the Coca-Cola bottling plant on March 30. Access to water is a fundamental human right. Water is sacred, and without water, life is not sustainable. Over one billion people around the world still lack access to clean drinking water. Communities across the world, particularly the poor and the vulnerable, are finding it increasingly difficult to access water to meet their basic needs.
PROJECT SARASWATI
by ONGC
February 27, 2008: As part of its social responsibility, the ONGC has embarked on a project called “ONGC Project Saraswati” to provide water in drought-prone areas of India. The river Saraswati, which had made the Thar one of the greenest areas of the subcontinent several thousand years ago,
disappeared with the desertification of north-western India. Rajagopala Rao said the project aimed at finding the possibility of the existence of deep aquifers, similar to conditions that obtained in the Great Man-Made River Project of Libya. The search for oil that began in 1953 in the vast desert of southern Libya not only led to the discovery of huge oilfields but great quantities of fresh water.
A study was initiated in western Rajasthan, covering 13 districts, under a memorandum of
understanding signed with Water and Power Consultancy Services (India) Limited, or WAPCOS, to identify broad areas for deeper groundwater exploration. Similarly, deep-seated fresh groundwater
under artesian conditions was discovered in the Thar desert in Pakistan in a village called Jumman Samoo, about 75 km east of Umerkot city. A 12-inch bore encountered an aquifer between 1,000 feet (300 m) and 1,200 ft (360 m). The well produced 200 gallons (378 l) a minute, making water available without any operational costs.
In a Demonstration of ONGC Ptoject Saraswati the villagers could not believe their eyes when clear water gushed out from a pump in the Thar desert, 6 km from Jaisalmer in
Rajasthan. The well, dug up to 400 metres, produced 76,000 litres of water an hour during a pumping test.
Rajagopala Rao said a preliminary study had identified
Jaisalmer, Bikaner, Barmer, Ganganagar, Nagaur and Hanumangarh districts for detailed investigation.
Rajasthan identifying wells in the desert
to take on rent
Jaipur, February 09, 208: Rajasthan authorities are identifying wells in the desert state
so that they can take on rent to tide over the drinking water crisis. After identifying the wells, the government will collect water samples and if they are found worth consuming, it will rent the wells and make
arrangements to supply water to local residents. “The scheme to supply water will start from summer in villages where we still do not have a public water distribution system. Identification of wells has already been taken up and modalities are being worked out,” B.R. Meena, a senior official of the
water resources department said.
Industries may be told to pay for water
New Delhi January 31, 2008: The Union Water Resources Minister Saifudin Soz said today that
Industries would soon have to pay for using groundwater. Soz said a policy on usage of groundwater would be framed “at the soonest”. His ministry had set up an expert committee to examine the issue following a campaign by the conservationists that the Indian industries were being allowed unbridled use of water resources without having to pay for it.
The campaign was triggered by a six-year-old conflict between the panchayat in Kerala’s Plachimada village and the global beverage company Hindustan Coca-Cola over the latter’s alleged over-extraction of groundwater for its soft drinks plant. Soz said: “The committee has agreed that the industries should be charged for using the water and now we are in the process of fixing the rates for the same,” The Cabinet would have to clear the policy, he added. Besides, Soz said the Centre planned to launch a major national project for harnessing the developmental potential of major rivers across the country.
Exploitation of water, land resources stunting farm output
New Delhi, January 1, 2008 (PTI): National Commission of Farmers on Tuesday cautioned against growing exploitation of land and water resources, saying this was stagnating farm output and forcing the country to import more of pulses and edible oils.
"There is a growing tendency to exploit land and water resources in an adverse manner and the need of the hour is conservation farming,"
Chairman of National Commission on Farmers M S Swaminathan said on Tuesday. The increased dependency on imports of pulses and edible oils is threatening food security of the country and the government needs to take steps to increase the agricultural output, he said. Currently, the yield levels of crops like pulses and oilseeds have remained stagnated and as a result, the country's dependency on imports has also shot up in the recent months. In November
2007, total imports of edible oil in the country rose by 38 per cent to 347,320 tons as compared to 252,242 tons in the corresponding period previous year. The country has also been forced to import pulses lately.
"We can reduce the food prices by improving productivity of crops... If we now generate an yield revolution symphony, it will be a very important contribution to sustainable agriculture," he said. In order to increase yield and fight hunger, packages of technology and public policy are needed. Public policy, however, should be pro-poor so that all farmers can take advantage of new technologies, he said. - PTI
Nuclear energy
may be more efficient for the production of freshwater
Scientists are developing new ways to desalt seawater to bring clean drinking
water supplies to communities all over the world to avert vast shortages
of clean water due to global climate change and overpopulation. But desalination technologies are still remain costly. Several methods were invented to purify saltwater that include solar power and fossil fuels, but nuclear energy might be a more efficient method of removing contamination and saltwater. Meenakshi Jain of CDM & Environmental Services and Positive Climate Care in India says, "fossil fuel reserves are finite and must be conserved for other essential uses, whereas demands for desalted water would continue to increase. Nuclear energy seawater desalination has a tremendous potential for the production of freshwater."
Jain emphasizes that renewable energy sources could help ease water shortages. Wind, solar, and wave power may be used to generate electricity while also carrying out desalination. That, in turn, could have a significant impact on reducing potential increased greenhouse gas emissions.
Nearly 40 million cubic meters of desalted water are produced worldwide each day, says the
International Atomic Energy Agency. Most of the facilities to do so are located in the Middle East and
North Africa and they use fossil fuels to draw the steam or electricity they need to facilitate the process.
World
Bank on unclean water
December
18, 2007: According to the World Bank, today an estimated 1.2 billion people drink
unclean water and about 2.5 billion (1.3 billion in China alone) lack proper sewage
systems. More than five million die each year from water related diseases such
as cholera and dysentery. With relentless economic growth across the globe
farmers and municipalities are pumping water out of the ground faster than it
can be replenished. China has a distinct disadvantage to the United States in that it has a smaller
water supply yet almost five times the population.
In Brazil’s two largest metropolitan areas, roughly 30 million people are
affected by water contamination. In San Paolo this means severe water shortages
and in Rio de Janeiro, the water supply is adequate but pollution threatens to
make it useless for human consumption. In Russia, 75 percent of surface water is now polluted, 50 percent of all water
is not potable according to quality standards established in 1992, and an
estimated 30 percent of groundwater available for use is highly polluted.
India, the world’s largest democracy with about 16% of the world’s population,
grows by about 17 million people each year which means there population will
double in the next 35 years, and will run out of groundwater if the
current rate of consumption continues.
Contaminated water kills 3 kids
Kamahati, West Bengal
Kolkata, December 11, 2007 : Three kids died and 10 fell ill after drinking contaminated water from a tube-well installed in a
labourers' residential complex at Kamarhati off Belghoria in North 24-Parganas
yesterday. Police said at least 15 children of the Jute Mill Old Line quarters had complained of various ailments including vomiting, diarrhoea and excruciating abdominal pain. All the children were initially rushed to nearby Sagar Dutta State Hospital. Tension broke out in the locality today following the death of the children, who are all residents of the labour quarters. The locals have blamed the sheer callousness of the municipality and the Kamarhati jute mill authorities for the disaster.
The municipal authorities have brushed aside their responsibilities claiming that they did not install the tube well. Labourers alleged that despite their repeated requests neither the municipality nor the jute mill management has made any attempts to repair the tube well or to prevent the contamination of the water. This neglegiance left locals with no alternatives to the contaminated well-water.
Punjab water 'is risk to health'
Delhi,
November 29, 2007: High levels of ground water contamination in the north Indian state of Punjab are causing DNA to mutate in
people, according to a study. Research over a two-year period found that poisonous pesticides and heavy metals had entered the food chain. This had caused a high prevalence of congenital deformities, cancer and kidney damage, the study said. It was commissioned by the Punjab Water Pollution Control
Board.
The report - by a team of senior doctors from the post-graduate Institute of Medical Education in Chandigarh - was conducted over the past two years. It linked contaminated water with varying degrees of DNA mutation in people in the state. According to the study, 80% of ground water samples had mercury that was far beyond the permissible level.
Arsenic was found in 70% of samples of effluent, 50% of tap water samples and 57.7% of ground water samples. A high degree of
pesticides had contaminated water in drains in parts of Ludhiana, Amritsar, Jalandhar and
Nawanshahr. The study says that blood samples collected from people in the area showed that in 65% of the cases the DNA had mutated.
The chairman of the Water Pollution Control Board, Yogesh
Goel, said that the "industry was not just to blame, the overuse of pesticides was another reason. We have to ascertain reasons for it". Apart from studying the quality of water close to major drains in which effluents were discharged, the study also looked at the health profile of people in settlements close to these drains. The pollution control chief said the board would study the report and make its recommendations to the government. He said the study had recommended constant monitoring of water supply and sewerage, involvement of village councils in the treatment and disposal of solid waste, and the need for industries to adopt new technology in extracting ground water. The state has begun implementing a World Bank project to improve water supply and sanitation in the state.
Source: BBC News
Floating nuclear power plants
may be a new source of
clean water
A nuclear power plants
which have a lot of excess heat may be used to make fresh
water, the idea of S.S. Verma, with the Department of Physics at the Sont
Longowal Institute in Punjab, India. If located offshore near large population
centers, the plants could provide cheap electricity as well as fresh water to
mega cities like Mumbai. Some companies are already looking at developing
desalination platforms that can be attached to nuclear plants, he said, according to the Indo-Asian News Service.
Nuclear plants do produce a lot of waste heat. Many believe that hydrogen could become economical if the waste heat
from these plants could be used to crack water molecules to produce the gas.
Some companies in Canada are contemplating installing nuclear power plants near
the tar sands deposits in Alberta to produce hydrogen, a necessary ingredient
for turning the goopy tar into usable liquid fuel.
In many large cities in India, people wait in line to get water from roving trucks. Droughts and crop failures are expected
to increase as global temperatures rise. And it's not just in the emerging
world. Australia is suffering through a prolonged shortage of water.
Desalination provides an avenue out of it, but conventional methods are
expensive and somewhat time consuming. Other water purification ideas out there include better membranes (from start-up
Nano H20) better purification ponds (a la Aqwise) and simulated evaporation and
condensation from Altela.
Source: CNET News.com
Cairn strikes water in Rajasthan desert
Cairn India, which has struck oil in Barmer, has managed to discover substantial freshwater resources in Rajasthan desert, in what has come as a boon to the
water- starved region. Cairn India had made a commitment to the government of Rajasthan that for its own drilling operations, it will use water only from saline aquifers.
Local authorities in Barmer also requested the company to assist them in a similar study to understand and define the extent, nature and status of the
freshwater resource in the Barmer area.
Cairn commissioned a freshwater study and appointed Water Management
Consultants (UK) for expert assistance. The study helped in understanding the
hydrogeology of the Barmer Basin, and in defining the extent and availability of the freshwater resources of the area.
The findings provided information for the state government authorities responsible for water management in the
area and provided a sound basis for decision-making with regards to management of the resource. A new freshwater zone has been also identified. The model could also be used to identify data shortcomings and to predict outcomes for various
management options and natural changes.
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