Laudable initiative on water

IT'S NOT easy to talk about water scarcity when the streets are flooded with the heavy inter-monsoons; but even in the pouring rain, people go without access to drinking water.

People living in the arid areas of Hambantota or Puttalam, people living in marshy suburbs of Colombo who cannot drink the brackish water, people in Jaffna peninsula whose wells are contaminated with excessive nitrates, people in Colombo's slums whose drinking water needs are compromised by the lack of access to piped water.

Even in the wet-zone of Sri Lanka, where annual rainfall tops 3000 mm, we still see scarcity manifesting in many different forms- the housewife whose well cannot be used due to a polluting factory close by, people living on higher ground whose deep tube wells dry up in the short period of drought, suburban families who have to depend on bowser-transported water because their local water supply is far from reliable and safe, large housing schemes with tiny parcels of land but without proper water supply.

This is the unfortunate reality in our country- but the issue of scarcity is even greater else where in South Asia.

South Asia counts among the more water-rich regions in the world, but the future does not bode well for the region. Scientists predict that India and Pakistan will face acute water scarcity by 2015, chiefly due to huge population numbers and increased demand.

The region already accounts for nearly a quarter of the world's population and over a third of people living in acute poverty (earning less than one dollar a day).

In addition, water-related disasters like floods, drought, and cyclones are a common malaise. Even in countries like Sri Lanka we are facing disasters like flash floods and extended droughts, landslides and freak cyclones- and these are occurring with increasing regularity.

Unfortunately throughout the region, good water management has been a victim to lack of commitment. Despite promises at the UN and other international fora, the countries of this region still have 234 million people without access to safe water, almost a billion people without basic sanitation and 515 million people living in absolute poverty (earning less than a dollar a day, in UN lingo).

In Sri Lanka, we are lulled into believing that we have fewer problems, especially regarding water, and that we are well on our way to meeting the Millennium Development Goals for 2015 set out by the UN.

But as our population expands, migration to urban areas increases, the country faces a potentially serious situation regarding water in the coming years.

Not that we are short of good practices. One of the best examples that comes out of the country is the CWSSP (Community Water Supply and Sanitation Project) of the Ministry of Urban Development and Water Supply.

In this project, rural water supply is owned and managed by the village (a community organization) and those receiving the piped water, pay for the cost of operations and maintenance of the system.

World Bank even extended their credit line for the project because of its great success in allowing people to participate in managing their access to safe water and sanitation.

There is an ever present debate over water- Is it not a human right to have access to safe drinking water? Is it not a basic human need which should be provided for by the state?

But we all know that this right is not respected and that millions of people go without clean water all over the world. If we don't plan now, Sri Lanka will end up adding to the unhappy statistics of South Asia with regard to safe water and sanitation.