Need of an hour to introduce a new reverse phrase "Spending Water Like Money" to dictionaries!
Still remember the days when fathers used to yell at their kids in the teenage, “Be frugal, don’t spend money like water!!”
No one ever imagined that a day would come when we all witness a situation where this phrase could be read by trading off or swapping water with money. Yes! Welcome to the age where we are screaming at each other to stop spending water like money. Although most of the population in the world is living in a matrix (movie) like state, unconscious and ignorant about the reality of water crisis, still a major part of substantial inhabitants of this planet are experiencing the agony of the penalty imposed by the court of nature for brutally raping mother earth for years.
Man is truly sadistic and merciless when it comes to using something which comes free of cost and water is one of those commodities. Some scientists have established a fact that water came to this planet in tiny packets inside the meteorites that collided with a huge mass of gas and dust which later formed the earth. What an incredible phenomenon! The process of earth formation looks so gigantic and enormous to us but we are still a speck in the universe. We are spending hefty amount of money and running against the clock to discover a single drop of water on planets, asteroids and whatever coming across our telescopic and radio ventures, located at unfathomable depths of universe but we do not give a toss about respecting the wealthy aquatic treasures of our own.
The population to water ratio is increasing like a wildfire and we are not willing to put out best foot forward to quench the thirst of our own specie. As a consequence, we are losing our grip on one of the best conventional assets, Agriculture, a blessing passed from generation to generation by our ancestors. Many farmers in rural areas are either leaving their traditional mechanisms of farming and further degrading the fertility of soil by using inorganic shortcuts due to high drought conditions or completely leaving behind their past and moving to coastal urban areas to spot and secure a job for survival and which is putting a huge pressure on urban infrastructure. With key bills like land acquisition bill buried under the political debate and differences, urbanization or development of land is down the drain. The only source of water we have is the Monsoon and there are huge variations of rainfall across the states; some of them are too dry and some are mostly flooded.
Building an infrastructure to balance this disparity via transportation or dams is like fighting an uphill battle, more you fight more the risk of losing your fighters. Rain water harvesting is also a distant dream for a population unenlightened and unresponsive about the knowledge and technology of sustainability. On top of that the burning question of river pollution is falling on deaf ears; the condition of Ganges has become a Chinese arithmetic. The only feasible option for us to keep body and soul together is to rely on desalination technology. Although the production cost is currently high for processing the sea water, by virtue of technological advancements and cost effective business models, the operating cost would definitely plummet over the period of time. India is blessed with approximately 4,600 miles of coastline which is a boon for desalination projects and this geographical bonus can boost the development of desalination plants along the coast of Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamilnadu, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal and Orissa where private players like Va Tech WABAG, IDE India etc have already jumped on the bandwagon.
It is a high time for investors to cash in their chips in the desalination projects, ground water charging projects etc in India and become an integral part of the growth journey. With growing risk of conflicts within continents, countries or states as far as the water crisis is concerned, desalination sector is the only light at the end of the tunnel and it offers a lot in terms of global peace, financial yield and technological dividend.
Be a little more you and a lot less them!
Cheers!
Steemiterator Chinmay!