Shobita recently came across several news reports regarding the acute water shortage that the country is likely to face during summers . she decides to express her views as an article in a magazine, on the grave situation ,the cause behind this crisis 100words
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One of India’s largest cities, Chennai, is dealing with a crippling crisis: It has run out of water. In the middle of a particularly hot summer, the four lakes that supply the capital of the southern state of Tamil Nadu have dried up; together they contain just 1% of the volume they did last year. Residents don’t have enough water to drink, bathe or wash clothes. People are working from home; malls have closed their bathrooms; and restaurants have shut their doors.The natural instinct is to blame the situation on climate change and, indeed, the last monsoon’s rains were especially weak. While that’s certainly played a role, however, Chennai’s is largely a man-made disaster – one that more Indian metropolises are soon to suffer no matter the weather.
According to a study by the federal government think tank NITI Aayog, 21 Indian cities will run out of groundwater by next year, including the capital New Delhi and the information technology hub of Bengaluru. Two hundred thousand Indians already die every year because they don’t have a safe water supply, the report said. A shocking 600 million people face “high to extreme” water stress.That Chennai should have run dry first is instructive. Less than four years ago, the now drought-ridden city was inundated by devastating floods. Though located on a flood plain, the city had paved over the lakes and wetlands that might have helped the process of recharging the water table. As a result, heavy rains couldn’t percolate into aquifers under the city. Water pooled and surged aboveground. That reduced the resources available to deal with a crisis like this year’s.
Elsewhere, demand is the issue. In theory, India receives enough rain every year to meet the needs of over a billion people. According to the country’s Central Water Commission, it requires at most 3,000 billion cubic meters of water annually and receives 4,000 billion cubic meters of rain.But too much water is wasted thanks to inefficiency and misuse. The situation is particularly dire in India’s northwest, irrigated by the great rivers that rise in the Himalayas. Indians are taught to revere the “green revolution” of the 1970s, when the northwest became India’s granary thanks to canals and tube wells that pumped out groundwater. That revolution, however, has turned out to be unsustainable. In 2011, 245 billion cubic meters of water were withdrawn for irrigation — a quarter of the total groundwater depletion globally that year.
But too much water is wasted thanks to inefficiency and misuse. The situation is particularly dire in India’s northwest, irrigated by the great rivers that rise in the Himalayas. Indians are taught to revere the “green revolution” of the 1970s, when the northwest became India’s granary thanks to canals and tube wells that pumped out groundwater. That revolution, however, has turned out to be unsustainable. In 2011, 245 billion cubic meters of water were withdrawn for irrigation — a quarter of the total groundwater depletion globally that year.Northwestern states should be growing less water-intensive crops; areas in the east of the country that receive much more plentiful rainfall should take their place as the bread baskets of India. But shifting cultivation patterns around is politically to flow down to the Cauvery delta .