The other day , we witnessed an ugly scene in our immediate neighborhood – The occupants of a five story apartment were fighting early in the morning outside over distribution of scarce water to all equitably.

We face the same problem in our apartments too but have not yet reached the flash point witnessed . We get water once in 48 hours as the bore water is enough to  meet the requirement of 260 apartment units and water tankers are not readily available. 12 years back when we bought the apartment , we had plenty of bore water but most of the source have dried up as the water level has receded . We were then 260 families and today there are more than 2600 apartments in the locality depending on the same ground water . No sign of Municipal pipe water yet !

While in the Army , we were trained to live on 5 ltr of water a day in the field conditions! – Water discipline! . During peace time , the Army had a norm of 200 ltr for a family of four . Outside in the civil world , water is never taken seriously as a precious commodity and wasting water is a national pastime ! . Leaking pipes and over flowing tanks are all around . People in India so far have given lip service to rain water harvesting and such initiatives to conserve and reuse water .

One question , no builder will give you a firm answer is availability of water when they talk to prospects. Indiscriminate building of domestic dwelling units with scant attention to future availability of water is the norm in any Indian City and the Government and local bodies do not do anything to stop this trend.

Many experts say the next world war will be over  water . At least , I am convinced it is  possible  in my neighborhood if the monsoon is delayed by one more week!


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