On July 12, supporters of India's Delhi People's Party accused the Delhi government of failing to ensure the city's water supply was up to date during the hot summer months and tried to cut off water from the Delhi Water Minister's home in protest of the city's inadequate water supply.
They said that if the water supply problem was not resolved within 48 hours, the water supply to the chief minister of Delhi's home would be cut off. The protest was evicted by the police's high-pressure water guns, to which some netizens shouted: "What a irony, the use of high-pressure water guns for people protesting water shortages." If they had known that, they should have brought a few buckets. ”
In fact, as early as September 2019, Reuters reported that due to the overexploitation of groundwater resources in India, more than one-third of the people live in water-scarce areas, and it is expected that by 2041, India's annual water consumption per person will drop to less than 1300 cubic meters.
Almost every industry is inseparable from water, especially agriculture. Two-thirds of India's 1.3 billion people depend on agriculture for their livelihoods.
India is the world's leading producer of agricultural products, with nearly 60 per cent of agricultural irrigation coming from groundwater, mainly pumped by electric pumps. In this vast country, government subsidies for electricity have made farmers more willing to dig their own wells to pump water, but it is also a key reason for the rapid decline in groundwater levels.
About 200,000 Indians die each year due to inadequate access to safe water, and 600 million people face severe water stress.
According to the UK-based charity Water Aid, about 163 million people in India, or about 12% of the population, do not have access to clean water on their doorstep.
Every summer, water scarcity is exacerbated in major cities such as New Delhi, India's capital, Chennai, the auto manufacturing hub known as "India's Detroit," and Bangalore, India's "software capital."
India has a typical tropical monsoon climate with two seasons throughout the year: dry season and rainy season. The rainy season in most regions is concentrated in June-September, with the remaining 9 months being the dry season.
With just three months of rain, how can you sustain india's crops for a whole year?
What is more difficult is that India's main economic region is located in the tropics, with high temperatures all year round, and water evaporates quickly and is difficult to retain.
In the 2019 drought, the four water stockpiles in Chennai, the capital of Tamil Nadu, directly "evaporated" 99% of the water. The chart below clearly shows the contrast from full to empty Puzhal Lake in Chennai from June 2018 to June 2019.
What should I do if I run out of water? To alleviate the crisis, the Indian government will bring millions of litres of water from hundreds of kilometers away. And the whole of India, water, is not very rich.
When there is a shortage of water, farmers have to buy water to live and grow. The more water is scarce, the more expensive it is. Because of the need to survive, Indian farmers spend 84 yuan a month just to buy water.
In the case of agricultural water shortages, even the city has failed to ensure a normal water supply during the hot summer this year, and the people who protested and were expelled by the police with high-pressure water guns have to be said to be a bit ironic.
Isn't it more important to have water to suppress the people than to give them a normal life?
Source: Central Committee of the Communist Youth League