FOCUS ON CONSERVATION AND MANAGEMENT
OF FRESH WATER IS IMPERATIVE FOR ITS SUSTAINABLITY: BIJOYA CHAKRAVARTY
Smt. Bijoya Chakravarty, Union
Minister of State for Water Resources addressing the Valedictory
function of the Water Summit – 2003, said here today that important
issues related to Conservation of Fresh Water, Rural and Urban
water management, Industrial Water Management, Water Use Efficiency,
Water Quality, Water Auditing for Industry and participatory management
are to be addressed immediately without further delay. Most of
these are very important issues which require better understanding
among the water users to realise the importance of their role
in National Mission of Water Conservation. Users have to play
direct role in conservation and preservation of its quality. Availability
of fresh water and maintaining its quality is the most pressing
of the many challenges on the national water front. It is against
this back drop conservation and preservation of fresh water must
be given due attention for sustainability.
She further elaborated that
the people are aware about the challenges in respect of water
resources management in coming years. Going by the existing trends,
one can say with confidence that the situation is very grim and
coming days will be very difficult for the water users unless
these problems are addressed holistically by the Government, NGOs
and stakeholders. All of us know that India has 15% of World’s
population with meagre 4% of the World’s fresh water supply. The
degree of variation in water from region to region is also quite
considerable as there is severe floods concomitant with scarcity
of water. Apart from the problems of uneven availability caused
by considerable variations, people face problems resulting from
overuse and over exploitation of water, waterlogging, depletion
of ground water and pollution and contamination of water quality
due to excess of fluoride, arsenic and brackishness, in certain
areas.
Looking at the gravity of
the problems, she said that efforts are to be made to prepare
an action plan for development and management of water resources
and ensure its sustainability. The question of sustainability
is not only a matter of adequate water supply but also of maintaining
quality. Effective measures are to be taken to stop the ongoing
deterioration of quality of both surface and ground water. Indiscriminate
and uncontrolled development of groundwater has led to a fall
in the water table in many parts of the country. The overall utilisation
of groundwater potential in the country is only 66%. The problems
of water quality is getting worsened due to industrial and domestic
pollution. In view of maintaining sustainable water resources
with due consideration to ecological, economic and ethical sustainability
blended with technical feasibility requires adoption of a holistic
and integrated approach involving engineering, socio-economic
and environmental aspects.
Smt. Chakravarty urged upon
the participants to evolve right strategy to incorporate a participatory
approach by involving the water users and stakeholders to bring
out solution to this problem.
The Federation of Indian Chambers
of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) jointly with the Ministry of
Water Resources has orgainsed the Water Summit – 2003 to focus
on fresh water management and conservation.
