The Sabarimala Sannidhanam is likely to face water scarcity during the ensuing Mandalam-Makaravilakku pilgrim season since the Kunnar check-dam in the interior forests has been filled with earth and mud carried by the recent floods.
The 3.5-metre-high check-dam, with a capacity to store 50 lakh litres of water, has been catering to the drinking water needs of the Sabarimala Sannidhanam for several years.
The water stored in the check-dam in the forests, seven kilometres from Sabarimala, is being brought to the storage tanks at Pandithavalom by gravitational flow for being supplied to the entire Sannidhanam.
The Travancore Devaswom Board and the High Power Committee for implementation of the Sabarimala master plan had proposed augmentation of the storage capacity of the dam by increasing its height.
However, the Forest Department is yet to accept the proposal on ecological grounds.
Now, with the check-dam filled with sand and mud, the flow of water to the storage tanks at the Sannidhanam has been stopped.
‘Scoop out earth’ The TDB engineering team inspected the Kunnar dam on Monday and demanded that earth be scooped out of the dam urgently.
Enough stock Board sources said there would not be any water scarcity at Sabarimala during the forthcoming monthly puja period as it had stocked 200 lakh litres of water at the Sannidhanam as on Monday.
However, the check-dam should be cleared of earth in a time-bound manner to avoid water scarcity during the annual pilgrimage season, they said.

Deprived of basic facilities, people across the suburbs of Balochistan’s Dera Bugti district cannot remember when they last had access to clean drinking water.
Facing the worst shortage in over two decades while the authorities concerned bat no eye, residents of Habib Rani and Pattokh have been dependent on rivulets and puddles of muddy water for daily use.
In a video making rounds over the internet, the locals of the area can be seen fighting as they struggle to collect water from what appears to be a fresh water source.
Speaking to Pakistan Today, one of the protesters said that their representatives had failed them.
He also said that as many as five gas fields were operating in Dera Bugti, but locals, including him, neither had gas, water or electricity.
Azam also complained of lack of hospitals and schools in the area.
Inevitably, generations of families across the suburbs of the country’s largest province by area have been affected by water-borne diseases like diarrhoea, cholera and more.
It merits mention that in Balochistan, annual precipitation ranges from 50 to 500mm.
Locals have to walk miles to fetch one container of water to meet their daily needs.
He also expressed the hope that by nurturing relations with the federal government, the long-lasting issues of Balochistan could finally be resolved.

There are very few villagers who have hope that the situation will change sometime in the near future.
Ahmed says, “We don’t have any option but to collect water from ponds, puddles or tube wells in neighbouring villages”.
“We have raised the issue with the MLA from South Karimganj, Aziz Ahmed Khan, and other political leaders a number of times, but no steps were taken to resolve the drinking water crisis in our villages,” he adds.
“We continue to suffer not just from scarcity of drinking water, but we are also without electricity as well,” he adds Enam Uddin, the joint-secretary of Model NGO, said diseases like diarrhoea, stomach-disorder are quite common in villages suffering from the water crisis.
He has stated that he would soon take up the matter with Assam PHE minister, Rihon Daimari, and urge him to take the necessary steps to solve the problem of water scarcity in the villages under his constituency.
Krishnendu Paul, BJP legislator from Patharkandi, Karimganj, told Indiatimes that work to set up water supply plants in the district will be initiated this year and more will come up next year.
“I have asked the minister for a high-level probe into these scams.” Karimganj district has five constituencies – Karimganj South, Karimganj North, Patharkandi, Ratabari and Badarpur.
“There are more than 300 water supply plants in the district and nearly 140 are non-functional, while many other plants do not function smoothly,” he said.
“Nearly 80% of the water supply plants in Karimganj district have been lying defunct for years.” The legislator promises that he will raise the issue in the Assembly again so that defunct water supply plants are revived and new plants are set up wherever needed.
Sources said more than 600 villages across the district face this problem of impure drinking water.

“We have hit the streets on many occasions during the recent months but authorities have turned a deaf ear towards our sufferings,” they added.
Outraged at the failure of the district administration and Public Health Engineering department to provide them with the clean drinking water, residents of Daril Tarthpora in Kupwara district took the streets on Monday and staged a protest against what they termed as “lackadaisical attitude” of the authorities.
Protesters, including men, women and elderly persons, alleged that they have been forced to drink the contaminated water for the past five months.
“We have hit the streets on many occasions during the recent months but authorities have turned a deaf ear towards our sufferings,” they added.
"Due to negligence of administration we are forced to consume contaminated water, we have raised the issue with DDC Kupwara and PHE authorities but they have just ignored our pleas,” said Ghulam Muhammad a local.
They said that their women folk face lot of hardships in fetching water from different spots.
Whenever it rains many families remain without a single drop of drinking water.
A student among the protesters said that they fetch water from a well about two kilometers away from their mohalla.
Protesters said that about six months ago a water supply scheme was started in the area but was abandoned before its completion.
We request Governor (Satya Pal Malik) to intervene and direct the concerned authorities to mitigate their sufferings, the protesters said.

With poor storage in Athoor reservoir and no other tangible scheme to draw and distribute potable water, the weekly grievance day meeting at the Collectorate here on Monday was awash with water woes.
A large number of women, children and old people from Pothinayakanpatti near Kannivadi in Reddiyarchathiram union came to the Collectorate demanding potable water.
Village president C. Annamalai said there were 17 borewells for the 1,000 families residing in the village.
But for two, others had gone dry, putting people to much hardship.
Petitions were given to the panchayat wing at the Collectorate, Block Development Officer and Village Administrative Officers, but no action was taken to mitigate their sufferings.
Women had to walk two to three km to fetch drinking water.
Of late, villagers in Kannivadi were hesitant to give water to them, Mr. Annamalai said and urged the Collector to find an alternative and provide them uninterrupted drinking water supply.
In other places People from villages around Vedasandur and Batlagundu alleged that some individuals had sunk deep borewells on private lands and were selling water to commercial undertakings through tankers.
Though the land owners claimed they had the right to do business, drawing a huge quantity of water will exhaust the underground water in the whole area.
Action must be taken to close down such borewells, they said.

Srinagar: The residents of Doda town are up in arms against the Public Health Engineering Department’s lackadaisical approach in addressing the unprecedented water shortage issues in the town.
A group of residents told Kashmir Reader that the residents are compelled to buy “stinky water” from tankers which in result has created various health issues.
Attaullah Bagwan, a resident of the mountainous town told Kashmir Reader that his daughter remained bedridden due to illness out of consuming the contaminated water.
“My daughter was bedridden for months after consuming the filthy water supplied by the tankers,” he said.
Although the district is known for its abundant water resources, hundreds of residents are still deprived of basic water facilities due to the lackadaisical approach of the local Public Health Engineering (PHE) department.
“The department has spent crores on laying water supply pipes but usually they remain dry round the year.
Although in some areas the water is supplied but only for 30-40 minutes, which doesn’t suffice the needs,” said another resident.
Bal Krishan, the executive engineer of PHE department in Doda told Kashmir Reader that there is no scarcity of water resources in the district but the department is yet to reach every household.
“There is no water shortage in Doda at all, but in some areas, the water pipeline is yet to be completed.” He said that the department will make all the efforts to address the water scarcity issues of the residents.

Islamabad The Pakistan Economy Watch (PEW) on Sunday said the scarcity of water is transforming the country into a desert which requires the immediate attention of the government.
A country dependent on agriculture has framed its first National Water Policy after seventy long years while the provinces like Punjab and Sindh have yet to announce their water policies, it said.
Water scarcity has been felt across the country but nobody seems concerned about water management to reduce its wastage, said Dr. Murtaza Mughal, President PEW.
He said that per capita availability of water in Pakistan stood at 5,260 cubic metres in 1951 which was reduced to 1000 cubic meters by 2016 and it is likely to further drop to about 860 by 2025 which will be a doomsday scenario for the country.
Dr. Murtaza Mughal said that the Indus River system receives an annual influx of about 134.8 million acre-feet (MAF) of water of which water worth sixty billion dollars is wasted.
Reduced supply and increased demand has forced people, mostly farmers, to extract around 50 million acre-feet of groundwater which is unsustainable, he said.
Around ninety-five percent of the available water is utilised by the agricultural sector which a major chunk is wasted by water-intensive crops of sugarcane and rice.

This vital resource is in increasingly short supply but an international forum is looking for solutions Water is a fundamental aspect of development, peace and security in the Arab region DUBAI: With only two percent of the Arab region covered by wetlands, and 94 percent of those vulnerable to climate change, water will play a crucial role in the future functioning of the region’s ecosystems.
“New solutions are needed to ensure access to water in areas facing conflict, and particularly for women, children and vulnerable groups.” For Monika Weber-Fahr, global water partnership executive secretary and speaker at the event, the Middle East is not unique when it comes to water management conflicts.
In addition, there are options for helping to solve water scarcity problems such as water harvesting and the reuse of wastewater.” Weber-Fahr said the situation is critical and one reason why, on Aug. 30 and 31, GWP is convening, with other organizations, a meeting of “Blue Peace in the Middle East” in Stockholm.
“This is because policy-makers decided to prioritize water to the industry and for municipal purposes (rather) than for agriculture — the percentage for agriculture is now much less compared to other regional countries, including the UAE, at about 52 percent.” In times of conflict, national priorities change.
“Conflict adds a lot to the severity of the water problem,” he added.
The world’s urban population increased to 54 percent of the world population in 2014, a figure that is expected to grow to 70 percent by 2050 and, according to Dr. Murad, could affect future development.
We also need to change our social behavior as it plays a major role — any conflict additionally affects people reaching water resources.” With annual rates of less than 250 millimeters of rainfall in the Middle East, ecosystems are fragile and under stress.
“Rapid population and urbanization growth are challenges as well as high per capita consumption patterns.” About 40 percent of the Arab population is already living in conditions of absolute water scarcity.
“The majority (84 percent) of water resources in the region are being used for agriculture while the municipal and the industrial sectors consume about 9 and 7 percent of the total water use respectively.
Being an important vector for socio-economic development, there is a need for efficient and sustainable water management to ensure that the water sector can continue to serve the region’s development needs.” With World Water Week bringing together scientists and practitioners to raise awareness about the latest knowledge and innovations in areas most affected by water scarcity, sustainable development will require water-smart societies.

The water level has receded in the Mosul Dam Lake, pictured here in May.
A new Turkish dam upstream on the Tigris River could make matters worse.
REUTERS/Khalid Al-Mousily Water scarcity in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region can either be a destabilizing factor or a motive that binds communities together, according to a new joint report from the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Bank.
More than 60 percent of the region’s population is concentrated in places affected by high or very high surface water stress, compared to a global average of about 35 percent, it noted.
The report warned that if left unchecked, climate-related water scarcity is expected to cause economic losses estimated at 6 to 14 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 2050, the highest in the world.
Speaking at the session, FAO Regional Programme Coordinator for the Near East and North Africa, Pasquale Steduto, explained that economic losses mean rising unemployment, compounded by the impact of water scarcity on traditional livelihoods such as agriculture, could result in food insecurity and force people to migrate.
Steduto, who is also co-lead author of the report, stated that the good news is that actions can be taken to prevent water scarcity and instability from becoming a vicious cycle, by focusing on sustainable, efficient and equitable water resources management and service delivery.
World Bank Senior Water Resources Management Specialist and report co-lead author, Anders Jagerskog asserted that water scarcity always has both a local dimension, as it directly impacts communities, and a regional one, as water resources cross borders.
“Addressing water scarcity is an opportunity to empower local communities to develop their own local consensus on strategies for addressing the challenge.
Regional partnerships to manage shared resources is a step toward greater regional integration.

It reveals that 2,025 of the world’s largest corporations, which collectively represent more than $20.3trn in market capital, are now reporting their water footprint through CDP, up from 1,200 just three years ago.
In a bid to tackle the issue, corporates are increasingly making moves to invest in water access solutions in their areas of operation.
3) Implementing water efficiency measures While energy efficiency plans are a key part of most corporate sustainability strategies, water has historically been something of a “forgotten” environmental footprint.
Since the water retail market opened to businesses last April, more than 100,000 organisations have reportedly switched water retailer in a bid to improve efficiency and reduce costs.
Several of these organisations, including brewer Greene King, hospitality giant Whitbread and beverage firm Coca-Cola, are also reaping the environmental and financial benefits of obtaining a self-supply licence to deliver their own water and wastewater services.
5) Investing in initiatives that restore damaged river basins Some 544 companies told CDP that they were taking action to restore river basins in order to address water risks last year, up 124% from 2015 figures, with environmental protection proving to be the top sustainability concern for the majority of businesses to disclose their water footprint through the organisation.
CDP noted that the 7,300 water risks identified last year covered 149 river basins across 102 nations, with businesses increasingly working to go beyond water efficiency practices and lead collective action in river basins around the world.
Meanwhile, 48 corporations have committed to ensuring that all of their employees have access to the appropriate standards of WASH by signing the World Business Council for Sustainable Development’s (WBCSD) WASH at the workplace pledge.
The research additionally found that for every dollar a company invests in WASH, it can expect to generate $4.3 through increased employee productivity and decreased absenteeism.
This approach has also been adopted by Diageo, which assigns internal water costs to individual manufacturing plants as part of a wider goal to improve water efficiency by 50% by 2020.