Water Quality Management in India

Due to ever increasing water demand and uneven distribution of rainfall over time and space leading to severe water scarcity and water quality degradation in India. Discharge of untreated domestic wastewater is predominant source of pollution of aquatic resources. The estimated sewage generation from Class I cities and Class II towns (as per 2001 census) is 29129 million liter/day (MLD). Against this, sewage treatment capacity exists for only about 6190 MLD. The municipalities and such other civic authorities are not able to cope up with this massive task, which could be attributed to various reasons including lack of resources, erosion of authority, inability to raise revenues and inadequate managerial capabilities. The regular monitoring results indicate that organic and pathogenic pollution are the major water quality issues of India. That is why it became necessary to launch the Ganga Action Plan and subsequently the National River Action Plan, which are essentially addressed to the task of trapping, diversion and treatment of municipal wastewater. Similarly, out of about 15438 MLD of wastewater generated from all major industrial sources the treatment capacity exists for about 9000 MLD wastewater. Thus there is a large gap between generation and treatment of wastewater from industrial sources also. Major part of untreated industrial wastewater is contributed from small scale industries, which could not treat the wastewater due to various reasons. It is also important to note that there is no adequate collection system for the wastewater. This is leading to accumulation of wastewater in urbanlindustrial areas. The accumulated wastewater percolates in the ground and pollutes the groundwater, which is the only source of drinking in many cities. Several efforts are made by Government of India to restore water quality of the national aquatic resources like a series of legislations were enacted and a large number of institutions are established, several incentives and mutually agreed programmes are implemented. A brief overview of all these measures is provided in the paper.