Mismanagement and lack of infrastructure sector in India drag on water

New Delhi, July 28, 2009. - The increase in demand, storage and poor distribution and mismanagement of the rain water will unsustainable resource in India by 2025 if the country undertakes reforms.
So far, India has remained true to a policy of high subsidies to consumption, but neglect their poor distribution networks and storage reaches the point that 54 percent of supply is lost through leakage.
"The country considers water as a raw material for free, rather than as an economic asset (...). Most significant is that the price is undervalued and to compensate, are receiving subsidies, "said the Spanish Commercial Office in Delhi in its latest report dedicated to water.
The water market in the Asian country lacks reliable indicators and measurement data presented defective or absent, although according to consultancy EA Water, water availability and population growth trends are opposite.
Insufficient funds available also creates maintenance problems for the very old facilities and construction of storage systems in the country that has barely infrastructure to keep 30 days of rain.
"The problem is not so much subsidies as mismanagement. Resources are not valued and there is much corruption. The water is not despite the users subsidies, "he explained Efe analyst Dipen Sheth, vice president of the consulting india Brics.
The population and industrial growth and the still unknown effects of climate change add pressure Indian policy of water, a resource whose availability is reduced by 86 percent by 2050, according to estimates by EA Water.
And by these problems, experts cite as added difficulty the high seasonality of rainfall, concentrated by 75 percent between June and September with the arrival of the southwest monsoon.
So when the failure phenomenon, as this year, the situation is becoming even tragedy for the hundreds of millions of peasants of the country where two thirds of arable land are without access to irrigation and still depend on rain.
Indian agriculture, pending modernization, increased at an average rate of 3.7 percent between 2003 and 2008, well below the other economic sectors, partly because of its dependence on seasonal factors.
And this year the outlook is unpromising: the monsoon of 2009 is still weak in northern India, with rains in June were 43 percent below average and a worrying situation in 15 of the 36 meteorological divisions country.
"I'm crossing my fingers to see what happens at the end. We have not initiated a contingency plan, "said a few days ago Indian Agriculture Minister, Sharad Pawar, told the country's media to the threat of drought.
Water for agricultural use accounts for 70 percent of the total, while the textile, food, paper and energy consumption require increasing, which affects the quality and contamination of the item.
Currently, 15 percent of the aquifers are contaminated, although according to the Spanish Commercial Office rate will rise to 66 percent in 2030, and some people blamed the deficient monsoon soot contaminants cooking fires.
"70 percent of India's population uses biomass for cooking, generating a brown cloud of pollution that prevents the arrival of the monsoon winds," said IANS scientist Syed Iqbal Hasnain of the Institute of Energy and Resources.
With this scenario, various economic reports predict for India and a crisis of sustainability, which neither the authorities nor the private water industry, fragmented and disorganized-face for now with guarantees.

World leaders meet in New Delhi to discuss climate change

New Delhi, February 7, 2008. - World leaders gathered today in the framework of the Summit on Sustainable Development in New Delhi, where rich and poor countries stressed the need to reach a broad global consensus on climate change.
The conference was attended by five heads of state and government and ministers, hence it has been called the first major event since the UN Conference on Climate Change held in Bali (Indonesia), which was achieved a final agreement to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
"Climate change is a major concern and India will be at the forefront of the fight," he said at the opening of the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, for whom global warming is a "collective human crisis" that must be answered "strengthening solidarity."
After intervention by Singh, took the floor the principals of Iceland, Finland, Norway, Denmark and the Maldives, who asked to focus on what can be done "here and now" to alleviate the effects of climate change.
Nordic cooperation and stressed the need to reach agreement and to lead by example with measures such as recycling or the use of clean technologies.
"The moral issue is not between rich and poor countries, but between the current and future generation," said Finnish Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen.
But his appeal fell on deaf ears, and soon the discussion focused on how to distribute responsibility on climate change between rich and poor, although with a substantive agreement on the urgency to act to mitigate its effects.
"We have long said the Maldivian President, Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, especially in the Maldives. The rising sea will be catastrophic for us, so that the international community must take steps to mitigate the effects of climate change, rather than adapt to it. "
Representatives of poor countries called for a "change in the habits of the rich countries", while representatives of developed countries, including the Spanish Environment Minister Cristina Narbona encouraged all States to undertake "according to their possibilities. "
"Spain is an important role in the field of renewable energy Narbonne said attendees. Installed wind power are the third country in the world, and sixth in the field of solar energy. "
Narbonne, who arrived in New Delhi on Wednesday, participated along with representatives from France, Bhutan, Ghana, Pakistan, India and Laos at a meeting served to discuss the sacrifices that each country should take in combating climate change.
The conference will last three days and is organized by the Energy and Resources Institute, headed by Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, who also heads the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) of the UN.
The meeting aims to discuss the dangers of polluting emissions, rising sea levels and climate change effects, which have emerged this year in Ghana and floods in the Himalayas, where glaciers are melting.
"Climate change is happening because the world does not follow a sustainable development. We need a global policy, "Pachauri said at the inauguration.

Bangladesh faces climate change with doubts about its survival

New Delhi, April 29, 2007. - More than 15 million people at risk of becoming "climate refugees" in Bangladesh where, according to the UN Environment Program, a rise of 1.5 meters in sea level would away 16 percent of its territory.
"We have no development or infrastructure. Just emit harmful gases into the atmosphere. So, while rich countries pollute and the earth warms, we are the victims, "said Efe from Dhaka a spokesman for the Center for Advanced Study in Bangladesh (BCAS), Jandakar Mainudin.
At home, set around extensive Sundarbans delta, formed by the rivers Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna, about 60 of its 140 million people-overwhelmingly poor, live less than 10 meters above sea level, making them particularly vulnerable to any change of the medium.
"There are many people affected. Our land is very flat and coastal people will have to flee northward. Still, we have the advantage that it is a process that happens slowly, "he told Efe AQM Mahbub professor of ecology at the University of Dhaka.
According to a report released this month, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change UN forecasts for the year 2100 an increase in sea levels that threaten coastal areas and plains of the country, dominated by the Sundarbans delta ("beautiful jungle" in Bengali).
Of the major rivers, Bangladesh gets the fertile source of its agriculture, dependent on monsoon rains, while the action of the ocean has allowed the extraction of salt and the development of fisheries.
And now, with the increase in global mean temperature and the melting of Himalayan glaciers and the polar areas, the coastline of the country, where the biggest beach in the world (Cox's Bazar, about 120 kilometers long), suffers and the pressure of the water.
"It's like time has gone mad: Too many or too few showers. The sea enters the delta and the rivers carry less and less water. Some offshore islands have already disappeared, "he said by telephone Mainudin.
Quantified in three millimeters per year by the World Bank, rising sea level is related to global warming, but also with decreasing flow of major rivers, drowned by the construction of dams and erosion.
The Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna drag tons of sediment that modify the ground and act as a powerful agent against environmental degradation of the riverbanks, where they have built shacks million people in defiance of the obvious risk involved reside at the level of water.
Each year, about 95 million farmers in Bangladesh expect with a mixture of fear and anxiety to drought and floods that come with the monsoon, so important for their livelihood and fertility of crops as dangerous to their lives.
"Our culture blessing because monsoon rains are very important for crops. But due to climate change, severe floods are becoming more frequent. Just check the dates of the last "maintains Mahbub.
Between the catastrophic flood of 1954 and the following similar effect spent 20 years as the teacher. Then, the interval was reduced to 14 years (1988), then to 10 (1998) and then to 6, in 2004, when was the last great flood, which caused 600 deaths and 4 million displaced.
The realization of climate change must take, according to the BCAS, to rich countries reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases, but also the development of pilot projects help, because Mainudin says, "apart from the great words to do something here and now. "
And as climate change looms as a threat to the future of the Bengalis, millions of poor peasants waiting in the Sundarbans delta arrival, like clockwork, the next monsoon.