Pricing the precious

Revival of local rainwater harvesting practices would help solve the water crisis. Even a hectare of land in Barmer, Jaisalmer and Bikaner in Rajasthan, where the rainfall is less than 100 millimetres per year, could theoretically yield one million litres of water from rainwater harvest. What is simply needed here is ponds, earthen embankments in rural landscape, and rooftops. About half-a-million litres of water a year can be harvested from over one hectare of land. Forest department in Rajasthan has done a great service by constructing over 4,000 check dams in Hadoti and Mewar region. Similarly Satna district in Madhya Pradesh has about 5,000 village tanks and an equal number of associated mango gardens.

In the cities, rainwater could be harvested from rooftops for residential use and the surplus water could be channelled through bore wells to replenish the groundwater. If tanks and roofs are to be used for harvesting, we need technology and policy innovations that must include institutional changes, so that along with private harvest, the common-pool resources are also effectively managed through public action. In order to allow market mechanisms, however, subsidies must go. Only then it will make economic sense to use the priced water efficiently. Also people will see an incentive in collecting the gift of nature and treating it more reverentially than ever before.

Deep Narayan Pandey is in Indian Forest Service and is at present an associate professor at the Indian Institute of Forest Management in Bhopal