![\"Rural](\"https:\/\/c.ndtvimg.com\/2024-06\/qedf8pr_water-collection-unsplash_625x300_13_June_24.jpg?im=FaceCrop,algorithm=dnn,width=650,height=400\"\/ "\\"Rural")
<\/div>\nWater demand far outstrips meagre resources and critical groundwater levels are falling.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Navinwadi: <\/b><\/p>\n
Far from the gleaming high-rises of India’s financial capital Mumbai, impoverished villages in areas supplying the megacity’s water are running dry — a crisis repeated across the country that experts say foreshadows terrifying problems.<\/p>\n
“The people in Mumbai drink our water but no one there, including the government, pays attention to us or our demands,” said Sunita Pandurang Satgir, carrying a heavy metal pot on her head filled with foul-smelling water.<\/p>\n
Demand is increasing in the world’s most populous nation of 1.4 billion people, but supplies are shrinking — with climate change driving erratic rainfall and extreme heat.<\/p>\n
Large-scale infrastructure for Mumbai includes reservoirs connected by canals and pipelines channelling water from 100 kilometres (60 miles) away. But experts say a failure of basic planning means that the network is often not connected to hundreds of rural villages in the region and several nearby districts.<\/p>\n
Instead, they rely on traditional wells.<\/p>\n
But demand far outstrips meagre resources, and critical groundwater levels are falling.<\/p>\n
“Our days and our lives just revolve around thinking about collecting water, collecting it once, and collecting it again, and again,” Ms Satgir said.<\/p>\n
“We make four to six rounds for water every day… leaving us time for nothing else.”<\/p>\n
Heatwaves and dry wells<\/strong><\/h2>\nClimate change is shifting weather patterns, bringing longer-lasting and more intense droughts.<\/p>\n
Wells rapidly run dry early in the extreme heat.<\/p>\n
In the peak of summer, 35-year-old Satgir said she can spend up to six hours a day fetching water.<\/p>\n
Temperatures this year surged above a brutal 45 degrees Celsius (113 Fahrenheit).<\/p>\n
When the well dries, the village then relies on a government tanker with irregular supplies, two or three times a week.<\/p>\n
It brings untreated water from a river where people wash and animals graze.<\/p>\n
Satgir’s home in the dusty village of Navinwadi, near the farming town of Shahapur, lies some 100 kilometres from the busy streets of Mumbai.<\/p>\n
The area is also the source of major reservoirs supplying some 60 percent of water to Mumbai, local government authorities say.<\/p>\n
Mumbai is India’s second-biggest and rapidly expanding city, with an estimated population of 22 million.<\/p>\n
“All that water from around us goes to the people in the big city and nothing has changed for us,” Ms Satgir said.<\/p>\n
“Our three generations are linked to that one well,” she added. “It is our only source.”<\/p>\n
Deputy village head Rupali Bhaskar Sadgir, 26, said residents were often sick from the water.<\/p>\n
But it was their only option.<\/p>\n
“We’ve been requesting governments for years to ensure that the water available at the dams also reaches us,” she said. “But it just keeps getting worse.”<\/p>\n
Government authorities both at the state level and in New Delhi say they are committed to tackling the problem and have announced repeated schemes to address the water crisis.<\/p>\n
But villagers say they have not reached them yet.<\/p>\n
‘Unsustainable rates’<\/strong><\/h2>\nIndia’s government-run NITI Aayog public policy centre forecasts a “steep fall of around 40 percent in freshwater availability by 2030,” in a July 2023 report.<\/p>\n
It also warned of “increasing water shortages, depleting groundwater tables and deteriorating resource quality.”<\/p>\n
Groundwater resources “are being depleted at unsustainable rates,” it added, noting they make up some 40 percent of total water supplies.<\/p>\n
It is a story repeated across India, said Himanshu Thakkar, from the South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People, a Delhi-based water rights campaign group.<\/p>\n
This is “typical of what keeps happening all over the country,” Mr Thakkar said, adding it represents everything “wrong with the political economy of making dams in India.”<\/p>\n
“While projects are planned and justified in the name of drought-prone regions and its people, most end up serving only the distant urban areas and industries,” he said.<\/p>\n
In Navinwadi village, residents are resigned to living on the strictly rationed supply. When the water tanker arrives, dozens of women and children sprint out with pots, pans, and buckets.<\/p>\n
Santosh Trambakh Dhonner, 50, a daily labourer, said he joined the scramble as he had not found work that day.<\/p>\n
“More hands means more water at home,” he said.<\/p>\n
Ganesh Waghe, 25, said residents had complained and protested, but nothing was done.<\/p>\n
“We are not living with any grand ambitions,” Mr Waghe said. “Just a dream of water the next morning.”<\/p>\n
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n
India’s government-run NITI Aayog public policy centre forecasts a “steep fall of around 40 percent in freshwater availability by 2030,” in a July 2023 report.<\/p>\n
It also warned of “increasing water shortages, depleting groundwater tables and deteriorating resource quality.”<\/p>\n
Groundwater resources “are being depleted at unsustainable rates,” it added, noting they make up some 40 percent of total water supplies.<\/p>\n
It is a story repeated across India, said Himanshu Thakkar, from the South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People, a Delhi-based water rights campaign group.<\/p>\n
This is “typical of what keeps happening all over the country,” Mr Thakkar said, adding it represents everything “wrong with the political economy of making dams in India.”<\/p>\n
“While projects are planned and justified in the name of drought-prone regions and its people, most end up serving only the distant urban areas and industries,” he said.<\/p>\n
In Navinwadi village, residents are resigned to living on the strictly rationed supply. When the water tanker arrives, dozens of women and children sprint out with pots, pans, and buckets.<\/p>\n
Santosh Trambakh Dhonner, 50, a daily labourer, said he joined the scramble as he had not found work that day.<\/p>\n
“More hands means more water at home,” he said.<\/p>\n
Ganesh Waghe, 25, said residents had complained and protested, but nothing was done.<\/p>\n
“We are not living with any grand ambitions,” Mr Waghe said. “Just a dream of water the next morning.”<\/p>\n
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n