By Col Sugandh Sharma (Retd)
Isn’t it painful to see that until a few days before the monsoons, Dehradun was grappling with water shortage, and immediately upon the onset of monsoons, citizens find themselves submerged in accumulated water. Such a thing should not happen in a town that has been receiving monsoons for centuries, has a sufficient slope, adequate seasonal rivers as well as nalas for drainage and is blessed with a reasonable amount of vegetation.
Moreover, the availability of water in non-monsoon seasons is not satisfactory and will only reduce as years go by simply because the population of the town will only increase with time. So, are there no solutions to this water problem and is there anything we can do about it? If we the citizens and the local government put our minds and efforts into it, the water can be much better managed in Dehradun.
In very simplistic terms, water management would imply harnessing this excess in monsoons and overcoming the water deficit in peak summers. The moment we can see this, we will understand that we have to harness all the excess the rainwater available during monsoons and take steps which will ensure water consumption in peak summers matches the water availability in summers. And yes, there are very simple ways to do it.
Harnessing and harvesting the excess rainwater. This is an extremely essential step in any region that receives monsoons. The rainwater needs to be harvested for storage as well as recharging the groundwater. This has to be done by three agencies, the homeowners, the commercial venture owners, and the government establishments to include all public spaces. However, like most things in life, people need to be persuaded to do it.
So, for the homeowner:
– Reduce the tax on materials required to put rainwater harvesting in place or provide a subsidy for it.
– Reduce stamp duty as well as annual house tax for houses that undertake rainwater harvesting.
For the commercial ventures, government establishments and public spaces
– make rainwater harvesting mandatory.
-make use of water absorbing material on roads, pavements, etc., compulsory.
We in Doon are blessed with several seasonal rivers, nalas, canals that are now covered and good slopes of land, unlike towns in plains, so the government needs to:
– Reclaim the natural watersheds to the extent possible.
– Salvage the erstwhile seasonal rivers, nalas and canals as far as feasible.
– Make micro check dams on the seasonal rivers and micro lagoons alongside these rivers.
– Collect the water runoff at the south/southeast of the Doon valley in created reservoirs. It can always be pumped where required by pumps in summers since modern tech has reduced dependence upon gravity.
– Create water trenches in the spaces available.
If all of the preceding is done, not only will the excess of monsoon water not cause damage, groundwater recharge and filled government reservoirs become a very simple issue since the overflow of harvested water goes into it.
Prevent excessive water runoff and improve ground water recharge
Laws will have to be brought in which makes it mandatory to leave a certain percentage of paving in construction as porous, above a certain plot size, for house owners, commercial establishments as well as government buildings. Also, all paving being done by the government such as footpaths or roads need to be made water permeable. All of this will not only reduce the water runoff, thus preventing destruction elsewhere, it will also increase the groundwater recharge.
Overcoming the water deficit in peak summers. The deficit is best overcome by two actions, by reducing the consumption of water and by making more water available.
– So, the rainwater harvested earlier and the groundwater recharged will add to the available water.
– Further, the government needs to install systems to recycle the used water so that it can be used for most other purposes other than drinking.
– To reduce the consumption of water, the government needs to reduce the GST, and prices or give subsidies on plumbing equipment such as low-consumption taps/faucets and cisterns and irrigation systems such as drip irrigation, even to household users. The instant these are costing less than the others available in the market it is obvious that people will buy and install this.
– It must be mandatory to use this low-consumption equipment in all commercial ventures and government establishments.
Therefore, at the end of the day, we find that the culprit causing the problems of water in Doon is not the water but our apathy towards water. If we take steps to harness the rainwater and reduce our consumption, not only will we not see this destruction in monsoons, we will have plenty of water to get by with in summers.
(Col Sugandh Sharma (Retd) was born and brought up in Dehradun. He served the country for over three decades including at the international level. Doon, particularly its history and environs, are very close to his heart.)
