Nal se Jal or piped water for all by 2024 is the flagship programme of the current NDA government. The concept is deeply disturbing in a time of intense water stress and impending drought. It will only contribute towards, rather than ameliorate, water shortage.
Asked what the key focus of the NDA would be in its second term, BJP MP Swapan Dasgupta unhesitatingly replied “water”. Yes, water conservation is the need of the hour, but Nal se Jal is a prescription for water profligacy. In a water-deficient society, it is an absurd and counterproductive luxury.
One must empathise with the spirit of Nal se Jal. The motives are doubtless pure. The sight of women walking kilometres to collect water and then walking back, with a heavy burden of pots of varying sizes precariously balanced on their heads, is heart-rending.
Cut to a picture of a village western Rajasthan in 2010. Big concrete and Syntex tanks dot the landscape. A network of pipes emerges from each tank. It terminates at a tap in each cluster of houses. But women still walk for kilometres, pots balanced on their heads, in search of water. The water tanks, pipes and taps are dry and have been from the day they were installed.
There’s no water coming from the backend. Contractors have made their buck installing the frontend, but to no end. Meanwhile, in the expectation of piped water, the community has neglected its traditional water conservation structures – wells are in a state of disrepair, or filled with garbage.
The trouble with having water on tap, is that it undermines water discipline. Piped water inevitably translates into overuse of water – we leave the tap running as we brush our teeth, or shave, or wash our hands or our utensils. A leaking tap or flush doesn’t constituted a crisis, because there’s plenty more where it came from.
Along the distribution network, there will always be leakages. The Delhi Jal Board admits to a massive 47 per cent water loss, due to leakages. Some of it is purely accidental, but mostly, the integrity of the supply pipes is breached by people who want access to water without having to pay for it.
Contrast this picture with the tradition of water discipline followed in water-deficient areas. In the absence of water on tap, water is utterly precious. The maximum use is wrung from each drop.
Water not used for drinking and cooking was recycled, not just once but twice or thrice. Bucket baths – so much more economical than showers - are the norm. Bath water or water used to wash clothes, was never allowed to go down the drain. It was collected and used to wash floors or nurture plants. Utensils are cleaned with minimal water and more ash/sand.
When it rains, water is collected in a variety of communal wells, each suited to its respective terrain. Homes practice water-harvesting as a matter of course.
There is a social aspect to water discipline. Cleaning tanks and wells is a social activity, often dove-tailed with festivals. Women gather around the well or pond, gossiping, exchanging notes or dispensing advice.
Piped water can create health hazards. When every single drop isn’t being used, pools of water may collect around a communal tap and become mosquito breeding sites. Needless to say, flush toilets – an inevitable adjunct to piped water – were once unheard of.
One went to the field, or if one lived in Ladakh, to a chagra where the waste was collected in a tank and allowed to become fertilizer. A single flush can consume 3.6 to 1.6 litres of fresh water. “Pee in the shower” to save flush water, a Brazilian NGO encouraged people in 2009.
The alternative is the dry or eco-san toilet. It’s very much like a regular toilet, except that urine and faeces are collected in separate chutes and tanks. Washing is done in a separate pan. Instead of flushing, mud is dropped into the faeces collection chute, to encourage decomposition into fertiliser and eliminate odour.
Nal se Jal is feasible only if the backend becomes failsafe. The focus needs to be on the backend. Instead of investing in the frontend, we need to first invest in massive water conservation efforts. Each community must strive towards self-sufficiency in water, instead of depending on the government to suck water from the mountains or fast-depleting rivers and deliver them through pipes. Delhi is a case in point – the city’s thirst is quenched by water sources hundreds of kilometres away, which is grossly unfair to the communities that depend on those water sources.
Water conservation is a community effort. An individual can invest in water-harvesting, but that will meet her needs only up to a point. Only a community, working together, can revive a river (as the women of Vellore in Tamil Nadu did) or a water source.
The writer is a senior journalist with 35 years of experience in working with major newspapers and magazines. She is now an independent writer and author.
