NEW DELHI: A Delhi city minister has launched an indefinite hunger strike to demand more clean water for India's capital, where taps in some of its poorest neighborhoods are almost dry amid scorching heat.
“There are 2.8 million people in the city who are longing for a drop of water,” Delhi Water Minister Atishi said on Monday, on her fourth day of fasting.
Millions of Indians face water shortages each summer as demand for water surges on farms, offices and homes in the face of limited supply, but a prolonged heat wave this year has worsened the deficit, including in Delhi and the tech hub of southern India. Bengaluru.
Delhi relies on the Yamuna River, which runs through the capital, for most of its water needs, but the river slows down during the dry summer months, causing shortages that spark protests and calls for better water conservation.
Atishi blamed the neighboring agricultural state of Haryana for gobbling up a large portion of the river's water.
The Haryana government responded that it was Delhi's mismanagement that was causing the water shortage. Experts said a federal-level review of decades-old water-sharing pacts was necessary to accommodate population growth.
Delhi, a city of 20 million people, is one of the most densely populated capitals in the world, where exclusive neighborhoods and manicured gardens are just a few kilometers from unplanned working-class areas and slums.
But in contrast to increasing unplanned development over the years, the city's allocation of river water has remained unchanged since 1994, said Depinder Kapur, director of the water program at the Center for Economic Research think tank. Science and the Environment.
“What was true 10 or 15 years ago is no longer true. So, there is a crisis situation and it is a question of distribution,” he said.
The Delhi government is working on plans to improve the water table by reviving lakes and storing excess water from the Yamuna during seasonal monsoon rains, but officials say the summer shortfall is difficult to address with these measures alone.
“Delhi's water crisis has been going on for a year because extreme temperatures are going nowhere,” said environmentalist Vimlendu Jha. “Delhi needs a comprehensive water management plan where Yamuna cannot be the only major source of water.”
