| Wednesday, 17 May 2023 |
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Good morning [%first_name |Dear Reader%],
It’s Shaswata for Green Margins this week.
India’s first-ever water bodies census is one of the most important reports to come out of New Delhi’s policy corridors in the recent past, and it lays bare some stark realities.
Released by the Union Ministry of Jal Shakti last month, the census defines a waterbody as any “natural or man-made” water storage structure with “some or no masonry work”. And it shows India has massive capacity for freshwater resources—some 2.4 million water bodies, over 300,000 of which are capable of holding more than 10,000 cubic metres of water.
But not all of them can be put to public use. According to the census:
- more than 50% are privately owned
- 1.6% encroached upon
- and 16.3% not in use for various reasons, from simply drying up to being damaged beyond repair
On top of this, their distribution is also highly skewed; only 3% of water bodies are concentrated in urban areas, which host about 34% of India’s population.
