Graft contaminates water supply too

After having tightened its grip on natural resources such as spectrum and minerals, corruption has flown into the field of water supply too.

Some years ago, a global corruption watchdog had predicted war over water as it hinted at the rising influence of water mafias in most of the developing countries. It also pointed out that officials made 50 million dollars from three dam resettlement projects in China, while 25% of money spent on irrigation projects in India are swindled off.

It estimated that officials in India could gain 10 times their salaries in bribes and in Pakistan up to eight times.

In China, it said petty corruption at a local level has led to “a situation in which 700 million people drink water contaminated with animal and human waste.” This situation would worsen with the depleting water level and global warming.

Along with air, availability of water has been declared the fundamental right under Article 21 of the Constitution.

Even as the top judicial forum is engaged in shaking up the government towards its constitutional obligation in ensuring that resources of scarce water are interlinked through connecting the rivers at a whopping cost, there seems to be a little concern by the governance for this grave problem.

Recently an NGO, Centre for Media Studies, delved deep into the water problem and offered shocking revelation.

Its uncontested report says overall, 21% of the surveyed rural households reported that they have either paid bribe or were asked to pay bribe to avail the water supply related services.

In order to satiate their thirst for water, poor rural consumers paid bribe to the tune of Rs833 million in 12 states two years ago.

It is an irony that the reports regarding water scam have been of little interests by the government that swears by ‘zero tolerance’ against corruption.

A parliamentary panel has also regretted at the unsatisfactory information provided by the government regarding the state of water in the country.

The panel has recognised last month noted that the country possesses an estimated 1,123 billion cubic meters (bcm) of utilisable water per year.

“Unfortunately, the share of replenishable ground water is only 433 bcm and only 58% of the total replenishable ground water is being utilised for various purposes’’, it said.

It shouldn’t be forgotten that over 80% of India’s rural domestic water requirement and about 50% of its urban and industrial water needs are being met from ground water sources. But little efforts have been made to garner water for the rainy day.