Will Participation of Communities Help in Managing Water Resources

Water constitutes the largest part of earth but every source of water is not available for drinking due to impurities and chemical imbalances. India has been a country where drinking water resources are limited. Everyday, India news has something to offer related to drinking water issues. The Ministry of Water Resources, Government of India, has improved the Draft Water Policy for the betterment of water resources currently available. Possibilities of improvement have been predicted by giving management of water resources in hands of private organizations. In the earlier draft, there was an unambiguous recommendation that "The water related services should be transferred to community and/or private sector with appropriate "Public Private Partnership" model. But in current revision of draft, the full handover of managing water resources rather being given to private companies are on hold. As per latest India news, Ministry of water resources came up with a solution to this issue by asking community participation in development of these resources. The contradictions arised in privatization was that the main aim of the contract being ensured to profiting private companies and not casting any contractual obligations on meeting service quality parameters. Participating communities should be sensitized and encouraged to adapt first to utilization of water as per local availability of waters, before providing water through long distance transfer. India news media is still waiting for any changes to be made in accordance to improvement of water resources. With a 17 percent increase in funding Finance Minister in this fiscal year proposed providing $2.8 billion to the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation. The Ministry seems to have taken a good step by asking communities to participate still logical ironing on major problems in policy are yet needed to be improved.According to statistics provided by UNICEF, latest  India news revealed that every year, about 600,000 Indian children die because of diarrhea or pneumonia caused by toxic water and poor hygiene. In India approximately 70 percent of population lives in rural areas where half of the water supply is routinely contaminated with toxic bacteria. India would need to double its water-generation capacity by the year 2030 to meet the demands of its surging population but still the progress in improving water resources is farsighted. With increasing need of water by population, water levels in latest India news are reported to be declining at rapid rate in cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Gurgaon. The most affected city with water crisis, Gurgaon, needs a lot of development as previous year’s water catastrophe resulted close to drought in the area.