"When problems come, they come in swarm"
Here I'd not name those frantic problems, I'd rather love to reveal the ones who are responsible for such flaws. Without any further delay, I wanna say that it's indispensable to discuss the most ignored topic I, e water crises, Is it the failure of government or the people? It's obvious such crises are man-made but the blame can't be imposed on one section of the society only but the entire human society is responsible for the water crisis whether it's the ruling section or the ruled section. I won't hesitate to say that only a part of the responsibility lies with the citizens. Citizens are also responsible for the crisis but the bulk of the blame goes to the government, the politicians, the people who are elected to power because they are the ones who have to deliver.
Me showering one liter extra is not causing a water crisis. It's definitely the government's action or inaction, the things that have actually not been done, or the things that have been done wrongly. This is the first reason for such a crisis of water. Now we need to understand water crisis has to do nothing with less rainfall. There are many countries in the world that actually have very little rainfall but they still have a sufficient amount of water. So, if we really want to manage our water bodies we can easily do that by not presenting less rainfall as an excuse. The misfortune is that we want the citizens only to be water literate! here I wanna ask you a question, Are our politicians or is our government water literate? see what happened in Chennai you otherwise have a drought, you otherwise have a depleted groundwater table one rain comes and you have a water log which basically means the entire city has been paved on lakes, dams, river bodies, flood plains, trees, or Mangroves. Who has allowed this to happen? Government or people! It's simply the government.
If we look at the irrigation policy of the country who frames it? It's not done by the people but by the government. For instance, if we look at Chennai, the wetlands have been encroached upon and that's one of the primary reasons why the water crisis has been aroused there. Now think who has allowed these encroachments there around? It's the government indubitably. Similarly, look at the lakes of Bengaluru and the related crisis. Tremendous conferences were held for resolution but no effective result emerged out why? Here this question arises! The reason is that we always treated such crises as events, not as phenomena. Now we require to think if the government really wants aquifers of flood plains to recharge the water bodies, if it wants surface water and groundwater to be intact, it really needs to keep the forests, wetlands, and mangroves intact.
Now lemme ask you a question who is encroaching upon these wetlands? Who's cutting forests for mining, for bullet trains, and for interlinking of rivers this, that and the other? It's simply the government. I don't think the infrastructure approach is going to be a solution to this. Citizens do also need to play a role both in terms of conserving water and also in terms of demanding an efficient water management system from the government. Imagine readers less than 10% of municipal water gets treated. We don't recycle our water, we don't harvest our water, we encroach upon our river bodies, we allow events like Shri Shri's world cultural festival kind of things to happen on flood plains. The government has allowed a lot of construction to happen in Mumbai, Chennai, and Kerala. What can we expect? Whose mistake is this? Who has signed for such things? It's the government indeed who has done this and the same body is making fool out of us by
coming up with jargon like "Jal Shakhti" let me tell you one thing this Jal shakti’s logo is "Nal Mai Jal" Or something like that lemme ask a question here if there will be no Jal what's the use of Nal? Is this privatization? Is this a mafia? My dear fellow citizens every imagery that the government shows up the water crisis has a water tanker which primarily means that there is a parallel water economy that is being grown for several decades and it's the government who has allowed it which is worth billions of dollars and if that's the incentive of a parallel water economy! Of course, the government wants the surface water to disappear, of course, it wants groundwater to disappear and that is the reason NITI Ayog says that 70% of India's water is not usable it's common sense already 80 water bodies have been disappeared now if we have a statistics like that what can we expect.
Being a Student, more the citizen of this country 'Bharat ' I have the right to speak up as my constitution gives me this right under Article 19 and nobody can curb this as it's guaranteed under Article 32. I do have the right to criticism and I firmly say the water crisis is more the failure of the government and it really needs a complete correction. Don't forget that the water cycle and the life cycle are one so save your life by saving the gift of water. Gracias.