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- Drink Dreams
Accompanied by her children, a woman treks across a dried-out lake in search of water in the western Indian state of Gujarat. More than 75 percent of India's rural population does not have access to public water supplies, the World Bank reports. Instead, groundwater fills the needs. But when rain stops and temperatures soar, villagers -- as in this photo -- go without. Builders of the Sardar Sarovar mega-dam claim their project will eventually bring drinking water to 45 percent of Gujarat's villages. That supply of drinking water began in 2001, they claim. Dam opponents charge, however, that Sardar Sarovar's budget contains no funding for provision of drinking water to village communities.
Photo: Amit Dave/Reuters
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- Hydro Disco
As a heat wave scorches Calcutta in June 2003, some of the city's 14,090,200 residents find relief at a water theme park's discotheque. Popular playgrounds for urban, educated Indians, water parks are booming in India, drought or no. The park's water luxury stands in sharp contrast to conditions in Calcutta's slums, where some 2 million residents went for days this February without public tap water after a main water line broke, the BBC reported. The city's water tables are at their lowest level in 40 years, placing additional stress on the ground and surface water that supplies Calcutta with its water. Nevertheless, the city's Web site characterizes Calcutta's water situation as "bright."
Photo: Jayanta Shaw/Reuters
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- S.O.S.
It's an all too common sight for India. Summer monsoon showers pour down, setting in motion floods that destroy homes, ruin roads and devastate lives. Here, a girl waits for help in a flooded village in the western Indian state of Gujarat. River embankments and dams in catchment areas have been India's traditional weapon against flash floods, but conservationists argue that dams only add to the problem by contributing to overspills. In Gujarat, nearly half of the state's irrigation dams overflowed this summer, isolating entire communities. When Sardar Sarovar in neighboring Madhya Pradesh overflowed in August, alarm bells again sounded.
Photo: Amit Dave/Reuters
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- Drought
Desert-prone Rajasthan, in northern India along the border with Pakistan, faced its fifth year of drought in 2003. The results have been devastating: ground water is no longer available and drinking water rusty with metal dust from government pipelines is unfit for use. This picture, shot in 2000 during the state's third year of drought, shows a tree outside the village of Kotra piled high with the carcasses of dead animals. Between March 2002 and 2003, drought scenes like this throughout India -- particularly in the country's breadbasket North -- helped chip a percentage point off India's annual economic growth, India's Reserve Bank reported, to stand at 4.3 percent.
Photo: Savita Kirloskar/Reuters
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- Water Wanted
In an industrial slum of New Delhi, a girl pumps water from a tanker supplied by the Dehli Water Board. The idea of having water 24 hours per day, seven days a week in India's capital city is "straight out of futuristic sci-fi," THE TIMES OF INDIA recently commented. With a population of nearly 14 million, Delhi now ranks as the worst mega-city in India for daily water supply, The World Bank reports. Supply meets only 83 percent of the city's estimated demand of 800 million gallons per day, the organization notes. Most families manage with 40 gallons per day; others as few as 7 gallons. (By comparison, New York City residents use roughly 75-85 gallons per day, according to the New York City Dept. of Environmental Protection.) One frequently cited cause? Bargain basement water rates -- Delhi's residents pay about 35 paisa (less than 1 U.S. cent) per 264 gallons of water used, making conservation a low priority.
Photo: Gurinder Osan/AP
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- Grain Gain
When India's dam planners visualize the big dam future, this is what they see: endless fields of grain. Here, farmers fertilize a wheat crop in Punjab, a breadbasket state in northern India that profited heavily from irrigation provided by the world's highest gravity-driven dam, Bhakra. Jawaharlal Nehru proclaimed Bhakra, completed in 1961, a "temple of modern India." Forty-two years later, that faith still stands strong. India's grain production quadrupled between 1951 and 1997, according to the Indian Planning Commission -- irrigation provided by mega-dams is cited as the cause. To keep the country's growing population in wheat and rice, more large dams are required, the thinking goes. The World Commission on Dams differs. In a 2000 report, the international body found that large dams contribute to less than 10 percent of India's overall grain production.
Photo: Dipak Kumar/Reuters
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- River Rage
At a demonstration against an October 2000 Indian Supreme Court order authorizing construction of the Sardar Sarovar dam, an environmentalist stages a silent protest. Activists from the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) movement argue that the dam will displace 250,000 inhabitants of the Narmada Valley -- more people than any project other than China's Three Gorges project -- and leave them with little or no compensation. Many local residents have threatened to drown themselves (an act known as jal samarpan) instead. The government argues that the dam, part of a project that will place 30 large dams and 3,135 small and medium dams along the Narmada River in western India, will provide electricity and water for millions. Anti-dam activists accuse the police of beatings, rapes, and unjustified arrests in connection with the dam struggle. For its part, the government accuses NBA activists of routinely intimidating villagers to protest the dam's construction.
Photo: Savita Kirloskar/Reuters
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- Bulwark Builders
Along a tributary of the Brahmaputra River, north of Calcutta, workers use steel wires to reinforce a crumbling embankment. The river, shared by both India and Bangladesh, regularly changes course to swallow up buildings and drown inhabitants throughout the Indian state of West Bengal. Under a controversial government plan, the Brahmaputra is slated to be diverted to form part of a network of 30 linked Indian rivers. The goal? To prevent floods and droughts and ensure a steady supply of water through arid regions. Neighbors Nepal and Bangladesh take issue with the $100 billion project, though. If India's grand river scheme is ever completed, the countries argue, it will only deprive them of necessary water.
Photo: Jayanta Shaw/Reuters
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- Holy Water
For the Hindu faithful, the Ganges, mother of India's rivers, washes away sins and grants immortality. Here, women worship the sun god Surya before immersing themselves in the river's holy waters near Sagar Island off northeastern India. Other Hindus try to have the ashes of their cremated bodies scattered over its surface or immersed in its waters to guarantee eternal salvation. But even this legendary river, 1,560 miles long, cannot withstand the environmental impact of India's population of more than a billion. Industrial pollution, untreated raw sewage and decaying human bodies make the Ganges's waters unsafe for drinking . . . or bathing. But still, the pilgrims come.
Photo: Jayanta Shaw/Reuters
