In a pointed article this week, Sachin Tiwale rightly writes that Mumbai does not need more dams, but needs to fix the distribution of more than enough water that it gets currently. Same is the case with highly capital and energy intensive 5th stage of Cauvery Water Supply being inaugurated on Oct 16 by the Karnataka Chief Minister and Deputy CM for Bangalore, advertised through full page advertisements in newspapers in Bangalore (see picture).
What the India’s cities need is to exhaust the potential of local water resources, including rain water, local water bodies including rivers, groundwater recharge, recycle and reuse of treated sewage and also demand side measures, including fixing the distribution and reducing transmission and distribution losses. All of this needs attention through a National Urban Water Policy that will also fix the Urban Water Governance.
Today there is no policy to guide increasing numbers and sizes of cities and complete ad-hocism prevails. In such a situation all the concerned including politicians and governments get away with high adverse impact, expensive, power intensive and corruption ridden projects with huge climate foot prints and most climate inappropriate projects.
