As large swathes of drought--devastated India desperately wait for the monsoon rains to arrive, one village in the dry, hot north is flush with water.
However, this farming area’s bountiful water supplies are feared contaminated with heavy metals, underscoring the profound challenges facing the world’s second-most populous nation.
From toxic pollution of rivers and lakes to contamination of groundwater supplies, together with chronic shortages in drought-hit districts, India’s water challenges are acute.
Photo: AFP
In Gangnauli village, residents suspect their groundwater has been polluted by waste from local industries.
“The children complain of stomach pains and skin problems and I fear for their health,” Divya Rathi says as she watches her daughter play with buckets of water in her yard in Gangnauli in Uttar Pradesh state.
“We need the government to do something about this,” the 25-year-old said, adding that she could not afford the expensive water purifiers used by wealthier households.
More than 130 million people live in areas of India where groundwater supplies are contaminated with at least one dangerous pollutant such as arsenic or nitrate, the World Resources Institute said.
Its analysis shows more than 20 million live in districts where supplies contain at least three pollutants exceeding safe limits.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has pledged billions of dollars to clean up the filthy holy Ganges river, while efforts are also under way to stop raw sewage and industrial waste spewing into India’s waterways.
However, researcher Sushmita Sengupta said it could be too late in some areas where groundwater has long been mismanaged.
“Once the groundwater is contaminated, it’s an almost irreversible process. Once it’s destroyed, it’s lost forever,” said Sengupta, of the Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment.
Parts of India are anxiously waiting for the annual monsoon currently sweeping across the country to provide relief to 330 million farmers and others.
However, experts say the torrential rains will not solve India’s water problems unless much more is done to manage supplies.
Rajendra Singh, dubbed the Water Man of India, said rains would fail to replenish the water table in many areas because unchecked urbanisation has destroyed wetlands and other natural recharge spots.
“It will just be a flash flood,” said Singh, who has called for a ban on groundwater extraction for all purposes other than for drinking to allow aquifers a chance to recover.
“There is not enough drinkable water for the Indian people. Without water security there is nothing,” said Singh, who last year won the Stockholm Water Prize for his work to boost supplies in villages in the desert state of Rajasthan.
In Gangnauli, authorities have painted a red stripe on communal handpumps to warn the residents after testing found groundwater was contaminated.
India’s environment court, the National Green Tribunal, ordered handpumps in the district be sealed, and raised concerns about the health of residents drinking from them.
Many instead draw water from borewells installed in their backyards, but they fear this groundwater is also contaminated by polluted rivers that have seeped into the water table.
“There is poison in the water,” said farmer Dhramveer Singh, 50, who blames his son’s severe bone deformities on the water.
District magistrate Hriday Shankar Tiwari said the state government has acted to supply villagers with alternate supplies — including via water tanks and pipelines whose supplies are sourced from clean water deeper underground.
Village head Dharmendra Rathi said up to half of its 5,000 residents now received piped water, a situation he said was “way better than what it used to be.”
However, he said the pollution remained a problem, with factory waste from neighboring districts still discharged into the rivers.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not