Communities in most part of the North Karnataka state are facing severe problems with regards to Drinking water availability and supply. Every individual, or government department or the so called leaders come up with divers illogical reasons like Low rain fall, careless government etc , which are accepted by majority of people without any questions.
Do we really have enough water resources to satisfy the drinking – domestic water requirements of the north Karnataka population?. Fortunately the answer is yes. If we look at the rainfall data, we can observe that there is no drastic change in the average rain in the north Karnataka region, then how can majority of people in north Karnataka face drinking water problems. The simple reason is that, the available water is not utilized efficiently, to satisfy the drinking water needs of the people, instead the same is pumped to grow sugarcane over a large area.
Drinking water is the number one priority in our national water policy, but, instead we are using the same resource to grow sugarcane in arid – low rainfall region. In Belagavi and Dharwad region there are more than 10 established sugar factories and 5 new in the pipeline. In spite our country has a surplus stock of sugar for about 2 years, in spite of our inability to compete with the global sugar market, in spite of farmers struggling every year to get base price for their produce, area under sugarcane cultivation is still increasing.
In Malaprabha region sugarcane plantation has increased 10 times, (224 hectares in 1980 to 2756 hectares in 2012). Sugarcane in Belgavi and Dharwad consumes 160 TMC water (from various sources) every year. Just 5% of the crop change and controlled irrigation can save about 8 TMC of water.
• 1 TMC = 28,39,68,46,600 liters (two thousand eight hundred crore liters )
• 8 TMC = 2,27,17,47,72,800 liters ( > twenty two thousand crore liters). This quantity of water can be provided to satisfy the needs of more than 20,00,000 people at the rate of >150 liters/day/person for 750 days ( > 2 years).
it will be foolish to ignore this simple logic, and continue the ongoing trend, to further destroy out future and the future of our coming generations. it will be foolish to get repeatedly manipulated by the expanding Sugar empire.
Are we so foolish to ignore the fact, that we are experiencing a sugary drought, created by, and for the benefit of few so called leaders of the communities.
Source: Save North Karnataka Initiative: Life, livelihood and future depends upon availability of water. There is a rapid depletion of water and desertification of North Karnataka.
This is an initiative, to create awareness of dangers and solutions to those who are at risk.
The Save North Karnataka Initiative is taken up by a group of RESEARCHERS who have in depth knowledge about the topography and impact of change and all points are based on the observations of Mahadayi Water Tribunal.
Hi
All that you are doing is mentioning the problems, without proposing any feasible solution. Hope you understand that stopping sugarcane cultivation is not feasible, neither is it feasible to stop providing water to industries . Both agriculture and industries provide employment, and you cannot deny it.
What we need is solutions to such crisis, with minimal impact to stakeholders. The main issue here seems to be water, then can we focus on water availability
Even if we did harvesting of natural water ( rain etc ) and recycling of water, it would go a long way in addressing the issues. For Ex having 2-3 Sewage Treatment Plants in Belgavi to treat upto 80% of waste water can help agriculture use this water, leaving ground/river water for domestic use.
But its all about ROI, once water becomes costly, people will set up STP and then start using recycled water, so lets wait till water becomes costly.