Planning Commission’s deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia made a candid remark on this April 3 when he said that managing India’s water resources was the biggest challenge facing the country.
“Though the country’s population has increased manifold, growth in water resources has remained stagnant for the last many years and without increase in water supply, higher GDP would not be achievable.”
Mr Ahluwalia made this confession before students at the Indian Institute of Forest Management in Bhopal and asked them to come up with suggestions on how efficiently water resources and water bodies can be recharged.
The task of providing clean water remains the biggest challenge facing town planners and consultants who are bracing themselves to build a chain of cities...along the Delhi Mumbai Industrial Development Corporation (DMICDC). With more than 231 million people expected to move to these cities from rural India, this will become one of the largest migrations witnessed by the mankind.
Projections by the DMIC are extremely optimistic since they expect to double the employment potential in five years, triple industrial output in five years and quadruple exports from this region in five years.
Water experts feel the key question that has not been sufficiently addressed is where will they get the water to sustain these new cities? It is a well-known fact that India’s groundwater is fast disappearing.
Recent Nasa satellite observations shown that India’s groundwater levels have been declining by an average of one metre every three years (one foot per year). Already, more than 26 cubic miles of groundwater has disappeared between 2002 and 2008 to a catastrophic effect.
More recent data prepared by consultants working with the Central Water Commission claim the loss is three times what the satellite pictures show. Water loss in agricultural areas has been to the tune of 20-30 metres during the last 30 years with figures based on the water requirements for different agricultural crops.
The situation with Indian rivers is even more alarming. The waters of the major rivers through which the corridor will pass including the Yamuna, Chambal, Narmada and the Sabarmati have been largely apportioned with each of these rivers having four to five dams built on them.
The DMICDC report suggest that the Yamuna river, to cite an example, provides a large utilisable resource of close to 3 billion cubic metres of water but physicist Prof. Vikram Soni of Jamia Milia Islamia University points out that with the eastern and western Yamuna canals drying up most of the river’s waters for nine months of the year, its only flow is in monsoon that the river has a flow. “Unfortunately, during this period its waters cannot be stored or arrested,” he states.
Water-hungry farmers are no longer prepared to divert their precious water supply to cities, as political leaders are learning to their chagrin. Facing tremendous water shortage, chief minister Shiela Dikshit has been putting pressure on Himachal Pradesh to speed up the construction of the Renuka Dam in order to augment the state’s dwindling water resources.
Most Indian cities are facing acute water problems, with groundwater levels have gone down in Delhi, Gurgaon and Bangalore. Even Chennai and Mumbai have water being brought to the city from huge distances.
Architect Romi Khosla and Prof. Vikram Soni have joined hands to critique the DMICDC report and suggest a less invasive alternative titled Nature Cities. They propose urban settlements with a population of one million. These will be located close to the flood plains of major rivers and since the other water sources have dried out, they suggest the use the aquifers of flood plains to supply water to the cities.
Their approach is to develop a climate friendly city which is both sustainable and ensures lower temperatures even during hot weather.
“Once the water supply has been assured, the city should be based on a chessboard pattern with built up areas alternating with green areas that are not just parkland but made useful to grow vegetables and fodder for milch cattle. A small city allows for bicycle connectivity and also cuts down on commuting time system of green convection,” their report states.
Prof. Soni points out, “We need six-km-long flood plain to supply a city enough drinking water for a one million population. This water source gets replenished automatically and whatever is lost gets recharged by the monsoons.”
The Delhi Jal Board is already drawing water from the Yamuna floodplain to supply water to parts of Delhi, he pointed out.
Elaborating on this subject, Khosla states, “Natural Cities will have only 5 0 per cent of built of area with the balance being kept for roads and public facilities. In Delhi, most people are spending two hours in travel time and covering an average of 15 km one way to their place of work. In our city, the centre periphery distance is at most half that (distance) and it will take at the most 20 minutes to drive or bicycle.”

(This is the concluding part of a 2-part series)