Reports warn it could run out of groundwater by 2020. Has Delhi run out of time to reverse years of mismanagement and unchecked urbanisation?

It’s about 4pm on a muggy monsoon day in Wazirpur, a low-income urban village in Delhi. A group of 30 women are lined up in the 34C heat (93F) behind an assortment of empty coolers, buckets, petrol containers – anything they can store water in once the government tanker arrives.

“We’ve been here since 10am,” says 55-year-old Gudi. “You never know if the tanker will come or not – we come here every day and wait.”

When it finally arrives, the waiting women rush to attach hoses. Water gushes out at full force into containers, while a few children grab plastic bottles to catch any trickles leaking from the tanker’s pipe. The deadly heatwave that swept south Asia this summer, forcing temperatures towards 50C, was a forceful reminder that every drop counts.

We never imagined someone would die over water … This has become normal Rohit, Wazirpur resident

For many in this megacity of 29 million, this desperate jostle for water has become a part of daily life, with people sometimes missing out on work to wait for water that may not come. “It’s wrong. People who have water in their house can just fill it up in the morning and get on with their day,” says Vishnu, 60, another Wazirpur resident. “Here we wait for water and manage our routine based on that.”

Population growth, climate change, disputes between states, urbanisation and poor management of resources have made water – especially fresh, clean water – a commodity that is not readily available to all. A recent government thinktank report revealed that several major cities in India, including Delhi, could run out of groundwater as soon as 2020.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest May’s heatwave has given way to monsoon flooding. In the past this water would have been stored, but resources such as rainfall are being underused, say planners. Photograph: Chandan Khanna/AFP/Getty Images

Meanwhile, temperatures continue to climb. India has seen an average increase of 0.5C over the past 50 years, leading to a rise of nearly 150% in heatwaves responsible for at least 100 deaths. The heatwave of summer 2015 was one of the worst in south Asia’s history, killing an estimated 3,500 people in Pakistan and India. But a predicted rise of 2.2C-5.5C by the end of the century would put hundreds of millions of lives at risk, with the most extreme, quarter-century heatwaves getting even hotter.

When we started getting all these supplies from distant places or tube wells ... we forgot about our local resources Manu Bhatnagar, urban environmental planner

Currently, about 2% of India’s population is sometimes exposed to a 32C wet-bulb temperature, which factors in humidity. A 2017 study by MIT found that proportion would increase to 70% by 2100, with 2% sometimes exposed to the limit of survivability of 35C – the point at which the body cannot cool itself enough to survive for longer than a few hours.

Access to water is already a matter of life and death, with gross inequities in its distribution leading to desperate scrums. In furnace-like conditions, tensions can easily boil over. In Wazirpur in March, a 60-year-old man reportedly died of a heart attack after being beaten with a pipe when an argument broke out over the distribution of water from a tanker.

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The man’s son, Rohit, says his brother also later died from injuries sustained during the fight. “Our family has been here for 30-40 years, but we never imagined someone would die over water – now two people from our family have. This has become normal. Today it’s happened with us, tomorrow it will happen with someone else.”

Paving over history

Ironically, the fight for water now comes amid heavy rain. May’s heatwave has given way to the monsoon season, causing flooding across India. Last week flash floods in Kerala killed 37 people and displaced a further 36,000.

For much of Delhi’s history, this seasonal rainfall was harnessed for use during the summer from March to May, with water stored and distributed through check dams, stepwells (baolis) and natural drains (nullahs). It reflected a philosophy that urban environmental planner Manu Bhatnagar calls “respecting the topography”, which has since fallen by the wayside in the city.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Agrasen ki baoli, a traditional stepwell in the centre of Delhi dates back to the 14th century, but has dried up because of a lack of groundwater. Photograph: Alamy

“Everybody respected the rain … [people knew] they had to gather it,” says Bhatnagar, director of natural heritage at the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage. “When we started getting all these supplies coming from distant places or tube wells, taking water from 300 or 400 feet [below ground], we forgot about our rainfall. We forgot about our local resources.”

The neglect of those resources is said to have much to do with Delhi’s massive urbanisation, especially in recent decades. The city’s 1976 master plan featured 201 natural drains; as of last year, only 44 could be traced. Those that remain are mostly filthy open sewers, while the rest have been paved over with roads and parks. The Delhi water board did not respond to repeated requests for an interview.

Our national water policy is a fine document. But nothing got put into practice on the ground ​Rashmi Verma, water policy researcher

This intense and rapid concretisation of the city also compounds the heat. “The whole city is a heat island – it’s storing the heat during the day and, during the night, it is radiating and releasing that stored heat,” says Bhatnagar. “When temperatures are higher, the soil moisture goes down and evaporation increases.”

This has not only almost entirely killed off certain water bodies – such as nullahs, which took water to the now heavily polluted Yamuna River – but has also contributed heavily to the city’s low water table, preventing rainfall from seeping into the ground and recharging aquifers. “Delhi has lost its lakes, which are natural recharge bodies,” says Rashmi Verma, a senior researcher on water policy at the Centre for Science and Environment. “If we destroy these areas [with concrete], how can water go inside the ground?”

Bhatnagar says the situation could be addressed easily with porous paving, allowing rainwater to reach the ground, but for the fact many drains have been boxed in by two layers of concrete – one on top and one underneath. “They are interested in laying cement and concrete,” he says of contractors, politicians and civic agencies. “More concrete, more money. Suppose they had not lined the bottom – at least whatever flow was there, there would have been a recharge.”

Many traditional baolis have also dried up because of the lack of groundwater. Agrasen ki baoli, in the middle of one of the most built-up areas of the city, dates back to the 14th century and, at 60m long and 15m wide, has significant capacity. But in recent years it has become a popular hangout spot for young people, and is seen as an ancient architectural marvel: worthy of a selfie, but of no practical use.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A full baoli at Nizamuddin Dargah, New Delhi. Traditional resources such as these wells are being neglected, say activists. Photograph: Sajjad Hussain/AFP/Getty Images

“Not a single person knows the importance of that place,” says Vikramjit Singh Rooprai, a heritage activist who focuses on baolis. He pulls out his computer and opens a photo of the baoli in 1926, surrounded by lush greenery. Today, it is hidden below the ground in a narrow alleyway. “This baoli was recharged because of its catchment area,” says Rooprai. “Now it’s a concrete jungle. This is why this baoli can never come back.”

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Rooprai, 34, quit his job as a software engineer three years ago to dedicate himself to preserving Delhi’s historical water systems, and knows only too well the harsh reality for residents. His neighbourhood, in residential Tilak Nagar, only gets piped water during brief windows of time in the morning and evening. It often arrives dirty and mixed with sewage, and if residents don’t turn their pumps on in time, they must go without until the next opportunity.

With as much as 40% of Delhi’s water supply lost due to leakages and theft, the basic provision of water is haphazard – and this amid temperatures that can reach 45C. During heatwaves such mismanagement can be especially dangerous, though action plans in several cities in recent years have brought fatalities down drastically. A similar plan is in the works for Delhi, but it is lagging behind other cities, in part due to its complex setup of multiple governing agencies.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A nullah or natural drain, which carries water to the Yamuna River. Photograph: HANDOUT

“The urgency of implementing a heat action plan is critical – especially as it gets hotter in a city with such a large population and many slum communities,” says Anjali Jaiswal, of the US-based National Resources Defense Council, which has been advising on heat-mitigation plans in India. “Delhi is missing a major opportunity to protect human health by not putting a plan into place sooner, contrary to many other cities that have plans dating back to 2013.”

People have no other option. You can talk to them [about why illegal borewells are bad]. But are you giving them any alternative? Vikramjit Singh Rooprai, heritage activist

In the meantime, public awareness of the threat heat poses is low. The central Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan Hospital reportedly received three to four patients suffering from heat stress every day last summer, but with Delhi’s sizeable slum population, far more people suffer than the small number who seek treatment.

It is no wonder that people feel they have no alternative other than to dig illegal borewells – narrow, deep wells drilled into the ground; Rooprai says his own family dug them until recently. Illegal extraction has become so commonplace that groundwater in 15 of Delhi’s 27 administrative divisions is categorised as “overexploited”, contributing to the city’s shrinking water table. The government is trying to crack down on borewells in overexploited areas, but Rooprai says they are easy to hide or keep by bribing local officials. “People have no other option,” he says. “You can talk to them [about why it’s bad]. But are you giving them any alternative?”

‘We are doomed’



Authorities are trying to tackle the water crisis. Last month, the Delhi government said it was moving forward with a wastewater treatment plan modelled after Singapore’s “toilet to tap” initiative. Officials hope it will boost the city’s water supply by 15%-20%.

The government has previously promised 20,000 litres of free water per household, and rainwater harvesting systems are mandatory for buildings on plots of land above a certain size. But while these policies may look good on paper, they are rarely carried out. “Our national water policy is a fine document,” says Verma. “But nothing got put into practice on the ground. The problem is with the implementation.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Waiting for water has become a daily part of life, with some missing out on work in anticipation of a tanker that may not arrive. Photograph: Ashish Malhotra

Activists have been pushing for the use of community systems through which wastewater can be reused, but Rooprai is cynical about Delhi’s ability to adapt. “We are doomed … We need to change the way we think, but I know how we think,” he says. “People are not ready to listen.”

Bhatnagar is equally sceptical. On an old map of Delhi, he points to an S-shaped body of water he recently stumbled across. When he went to investigate it to see how much remained, he found it largely encroached on by villagers. Bhatnagar wrote to the Delhi Development Authority, the city’s main housing agency, calling for it to protect the area. But months later, he found that even more of the lake had been filled with homes.

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Bhatnagar intends to pursue the issue in the country’s top environmental court, but he knows that, as temperatures continue to rise, time is ticking for the city and its ability to change course.

“We are not concerned with the environment, we are just thinking about exploiting land,” he says, adding that the complacency of government and communities may lead to severe shortages and more social unrest similar to the violence in Wazirpur earlier this year.

“When that happens there are no overnight solutions. But perhaps that’s the kind of bitter medicine Delhi needs.”

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