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Urban India is polluting rivers and drowning in its own excreta

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(WSJ) By Geeta Anand

India is swimming in its own sewage and turning its rivers into drains for its ever-expanding cities.

OB-RF574_iriver_E_20120103075811.jpg


The Center for Science and Environment, a 22-year-old New Delhi-based advocacy and research organization, has just released its seventh report—this one entitled, “Excreta Matters: How urban India is soaking up water, polluting rivers and drowning in its own excreta.”

The two volume report, which took three and a half years to research and write, includes surveys of water and wastewater management of 71 cities in India, editor Souparno Banerjee told India Real Time.

“Every city was the same old story—it had devastated its surface water, it was depleting its ground water and it had no plan for managing its water or wastewater,” Mr. Banerjee said.

As a result of neglect and bad planning, many cities have turned their rivers into drains, and the citizens who live around them no longer remember that they were once pristine sources of water, Mr. Banerjee says. The Budha Nullah in Ludhiana was once a darya, or river, says Sunita Narain, the director general of the research and advocacy organization, in the preface to the report. “It had freshwater which flowed clean,” she writes. “One generation changed its form and its name.”

Ms. Narain notes that Mumbai’s Mithi river has been clogged by development so it no longer serves its traditional role of carrying flood waters from the city to the ocean. “It was called a river. It flowed like a river. But today even an official environmental status report only knows this living river as a storm-water drain,” she writes. “One more city has lost its river in one generation.”

But perhaps the most damning conclusion Ms. Narain’s team reaches about India’s water and wastewater management, she says, “is the complete lack of data, research and understanding on this issue in the country.”

A spokesman for the ministry of environment and forests didn’t return a call seeking comment on the report.

Ms. Narain suggests perhaps the ignorance is willful.

“Is it a reflection of the caste system of Indian society, where removing waste was someone else’s business? The business was untouchable. Certainly it was unspeakable. Or is it a reflection of the current governance systems, where water and waste are government business and, within that, it is the sole business of a lowly water and sanitation bureaucracy?”

“Or is it simply a reflection of Indian society’s extreme arrogance—our belief we can fix it all as and when we get rich?”

This is the question that advocates of anti-corruption legislation, economic reforms as well as improving India’s infrastructure and higher education are likely also asking.
 
it is the greed of the bureaucrats and the politicians and the alienation of brahmins from power.

---------- Post added at 12:10 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:08 PM ----------

(WSJ) By Geeta Anand

India is swimming in its own sewage and turning its rivers into drains for its ever-expanding cities.

OB-RF574_iriver_E_20120103075811.jpg


The Center for Science and Environment, a 22-year-old New Delhi-based advocacy and research organization, has just released its seventh report—this one entitled, “Excreta Matters: How urban India is soaking up water, polluting rivers and drowning in its own excreta.”

The two volume report, which took three and a half years to research and write, includes surveys of water and wastewater management of 71 cities in India, editor Souparno Banerjee told India Real Time.

“Every city was the same old story—it had devastated its surface water, it was depleting its ground water and it had no plan for managing its water or wastewater,” Mr. Banerjee said.

As a result of neglect and bad planning, many cities have turned their rivers into drains, and the citizens who live around them no longer remember that they were once pristine sources of water, Mr. Banerjee says. The Budha Nullah in Ludhiana was once a darya, or river, says Sunita Narain, the director general of the research and advocacy organization, in the preface to the report. “It had freshwater which flowed clean,” she writes. “One generation changed its form and its name.”

Ms. Narain notes that Mumbai’s Mithi river has been clogged by development so it no longer serves its traditional role of carrying flood waters from the city to the ocean. “It was called a river. It flowed like a river. But today even an official environmental status report only knows this living river as a storm-water drain,” she writes. “One more city has lost its river in one generation.”

But perhaps the most damning conclusion Ms. Narain’s team reaches about India’s water and wastewater management, she says, “is the complete lack of data, research and understanding on this issue in the country.”

A spokesman for the ministry of environment and forests didn’t return a call seeking comment on the report.

Ms. Narain suggests perhaps the ignorance is willful.

“Is it a reflection of the caste system of Indian society, where removing waste was someone else’s business? The business was untouchable. Certainly it was unspeakable. Or is it a reflection of the current governance systems, where water and waste are government business and, within that, it is the sole business of a lowly water and sanitation bureaucracy?”

“Or is it simply a reflection of Indian society’s extreme arrogance—our belief we can fix it all as and when we get rich?”

This is the question that advocates of anti-corruption legislation, economic reforms as well as improving India’s infrastructure and higher education are likely also asking.


Pay them well and even today many people ll come and work as sanitation workers.
 
india need proper sewage treatment plants and proper sewage disposal techniques but nobody is ready to invest in the sector,the govt will only wake up once a pandemic due to dirty water hits india
 
Why don't you concentrate on your beloved CCP poisoning your babies and using your countrymen as conscript labours.
And don't forget to breath in the poisonous air of beijing.

the infant mortality rate of India is an order of magnitude larger than the one in China. There are far more slaves in India than in China. China's environment is far superior to the one in India. India should first strive to surpass sub-saharan Africa before talking about anything else.
 
“Or is it simply a reflection of Indian society’s extreme arrogance—our belief we can fix it all as and when we get rich?”

This mindset plagues pretty much everything that India does. We need to start planning and put whatever money we can into these issues. India might get rich later on, but money alone won't be enough to salvage rivers and depleted, contaminated ground water.
 
Why don't you concentrate on your beloved CCP poisoning your babies and using your countrymen as conscript labours.
And don't forget to breath in the poisonous air of beijing.

Stop vomiting garbage, troll.
 
Why don't you concentrate on your beloved CCP poisoning your babies and using your countrymen as conscript labours.
And don't forget to breath in the poisonous air of beijing.
meanwhile chinese live much longer than indian and far more less infants die due to starvation and 'poisoning'

so my question is how much toxic air and water you have been taking in the slum?
 
Who want to bet the coming war India starts will be water related?
 
Who want to bet the coming war India starts will be water related?

India will never start a war. I bet the next war US starts will be water related ( Hormuz canal)
 

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