Natharadee Wangroongsarb 5704641082

India water Pollution

Out of 122 countries, India was ranked low at 120 in the quality of portable water. Even
though India has 4 percent of the world water but still India’s average availability of water is still
falling steadily from the studies. India has been foreseen as a water- stressed nation in 2020. About 50
percent of the Indian villages still faces difficulty in accessing the source of drinking water.
In 2001, 68.2 percent of household can have access to the safe drinking water. The
department of drinking water supply has estimated that rural 94 percent and for the urban household
91 percent can access to clean drinking water. However, these statistic is misleading due to the
coverage being refer as installed capacity rather than the actual supply. The reality is out of 1.42
million villages; 195813 villages
get affected from the chemical
contamination in the water.
The groundwater is a big
problem in many areas of
India since the water quality
isn’t suited for drinking.
About 85 percent of the
groundwater is domestic
water supply.

The ministry of urban

development and the central Pollution Control Board has estimated that 75-80 percent of the water
pollution comes from the domestic sewerage. During the period 1991 and 2008 is the period time that
the data is available. During that period the flow of untreated sewerage has double from
approximately 12,000 million liters per day to become 24,000 million liters per day in first class and
second class towns. The first class is classified as towns that has the population density of more than 1
lakh. While Second class was towns that has population ranging from 50,000 to 1 lakh. These
untreated domestic sewages will flow into the river which will impact the people's livelihood who
uses water nearby that area. The unclean water could lead to many diseases such as vector borne
disease, cholera, dysentery, jaundice and diarrhea etc. Moreover, the water pollution can cause the
children to have poor nutrition standard and development. Of 37.7 million, 70 percent of the children
get infected by waterborne disease. Besides the health issues that get affected from polluted water, the
polluted water can also impact the ocean living sea creates life as well. At a certain point, the waste
water may cause the soil to lost fertility which effects the plantation crops growth. This directly
effects harvesting crops and agricultural sector of the country as a whole.

Causes of water Pollution in India

The main reason for water pollution in
India is the uncontrolled rate of urbanization.
The population rate in India has continuously
and rapidly increases during the last decade.
Areas near the river has been more populated
with towns and cities which lead to many
resource problems. Growing intensity of
population has result the people to use sewage
water. In the urban areas waterbodies such as
lakes, rivers, streams, wells and ponds is used
for domestic and industrial purpose. Besides this, 80 percent of the water that are domestically used
comes out form the wastewater. Mostly, this water isn’t treated properly yet leading to pollution of the
surface level fresh water. Not only this but the polluted water seeps into the surface and polluted the
groundwater. There was an estimation that people in cities of population more than one lakh will
generate waste of 16,662 million liters per day. However, surprisingly 70 percent of these people have
access to the sewerage facilities. The cities and towns near the banks of Ganga generate
approximately 33 percent of the waste water in India.
Data from The Ministry
of Drinking Water and
Sanitation states that 45053
villages can get access to the
piped water and hand pumps
by the year 2016-2017. This
can be estimated as 64.19
percent of the India. But still
19,000 villages in India could
not get access to the water
supply system.
 The study in 2015 by The Ministry of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga
Rejuvenation have state that although India has received a lot of annual rainfall of an average 1170
mm, but India still has poor infrastructure storing the rainfall. India has a very poor performance as
the country can store only 6 percent of rainwater comparing to the developed countries which store
250 percent of rainfall.

Policy recommendations
For the resource not to be depleted, India must have awareness in the problem. They
must raise awareness in the people and encourage people to store water during the rainy season.
Organization should educate people about ways to preserve the water or have a campaign in not
polluting the water. Not throwing the garbage in the water, not throwing chemicals and oils in the
river, using the water wisely are some of the methods that
could help preserve the resource. In addition, the
government should set a budget to improve the
water storage infrastructure. Since this is a
big issue that could impact the Indian.
Moreover, there should be efficient
management that maximize the benefits of
the existing infrastructure such as the
treatment plants, water production, water
network and reservoirs. The goal is to distribute
the water to more people with the same capabilities.
Ensuring that everyone can afford for the water is
significant. The public plays the role in supplying the water should not set the tariff to be too high that
the poor couldn’t afford. The government should step in and subsidize the water charges in order for
the poor citizens can get access to the water network. To solve the water pollution problem, stronger
laws and regulations should be enacted to make the industry and domestic user become aware and
take actions.
Another alternative way of controlling water usage is by adopting administered prices. The
price will be at the efficient level when we use the inverted block rate structure. By this method, the
cost per unit increase as additional unit consumption increases. Therefore, people who consume water
will think wisely before they use it.
 Applying the theory of framework
The Malthus principle of population that we have study can be applied in analyzing the cause
of the problem. The principle proposes that the human population grows exponentially whereas the
food production grows at an arithmetic rate. Malthus theory states that if the population allowed to
grow unchecked it will cause starvation and war in competing for the scarce resource. Malthus argue
that the exponential growth of population will self-correct the famine and war. Malthus suggest that to
avoid the catastrophic, birth control and population control should be enacted. This is similar to the
case in India since the population is larger than the supply of water leading to the famine and diseases.
Water is known as a
common pool resource since you
cannot exclude others using the
water, having non-excludability
as one of the characteristics. Also
it is rivalry as the amount of
resource is limited and using the
resource will diminish the
amount available for the others.
Overuse of the common-pool
resources can result in scarcity
and lead to the tragedy of the
commons problem. Tragedy of the commons refers to the situation that the users are allowed to
harvest the resources freely making the resource to be depleted in the end. This go accordance with
the India case as the Indian uses water without planning to store or preserve resulting scarcity in the
end.
There are many causes of economic failures in allocating scarce water resource. The ones that
can be seen and similar to this case is the rate use of water form a water body exceed its rate of
recharge. As mentioned earlier that India has poor infrastructure storing the rainfall this makes the
recharge rate of rainfall to be low whereas the demand for water in India continually increases every
year. As we have study in class, there are many mechanisms for the management to with the available
quantity of water. But the best method to deal with the extreme drought case is command and control.
This can be done by setting the quantity purpose days and time of the usage and using the hierarchical
structure in controlling.
Question arise from the analysis
Ganga River is the largest river in India and known as religious importance for Hindus. It has
provided supply of water to the North India which consist of 40 percent of India’s population. Hindus
believe that dipping themselves in the Holy water of Ganga will wash away all of their sin. Every year
large amount of people will gather along the banks during the festival to ensure that they are
righteous. Moreover, people believe that dying around this river will reach to heaven as their sin are
all washed away. As a result, it is very common to see dead bodies near the river. Decaying corpse is
the source of bacteria and viruses. It would be very disgusting to dip yourself into the water which has
the decaying corpse floating nearby. But how come the Hindu didn’t mind in this and still want to dip
themselves in the Holy water that isn’t pure but instead dirty. In addition to this they should also been
knowing that dying around the river will directly polluted the water. I was not surprise that the banks
of Ganga generate approximately 33 percent of the waste water in India, as mentioned above. This
makes me so doubtful that why this
belief still remains till today and
question in the belief.
Sources

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Water Pollution in India: Causes, Effects and Solutions. July 31, 2016. Accessed May 7, 2017.
http://www.mapsofindia.com/my-india/education/water-pollution-in-india-causes-effects-
solutions.

80% of India’s surface water may be polluted, report by international body says. June 28, 2015.
Accessed May 7, 2017. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/environment/pollution/80-of-
Indias-surface-water-may-be-polluted-report-by-international-body-
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issues/water-problem-in-india.html.