Negligence of traditional methods led to water scarcity, says expert.
“We must start a dialogue with the Government for identifying, demarcating and notifying the water bodies.
In every state, the cause of ill-maintained waterbodies is different.
In Tamil Nadu it is encroachment.
It can be tackled if the government starts documenting the waterbodies.
The traditional crop patterns are failing due to the state of the waterbodies.
“To conserve the natural resource—water better, we must roll back to the ancient system of storing which is seven centuries old,” pointed out the recipient of Ramon Magsaysay Award and Stockholm Water Prize.
The introduction of water extraction techniques by the bureaucracy, change in the paradigm of development, state’s ownership of what is meant for the community to work on, disintegration of community institutions, creation of dependency syndrome which makes the government interfere into the issue and negligence of traditional methods for conserving the water are the foremost reasons for the drought.
In addition, the speaker emphasised on maintaining a balance between recharging the groundwater while we discharge.
“To make Tamil Nadu drought-free”, he said, “We must start interacting with people who deal with the resource, be it for exploiting, polluting or whatsoever the reason, and try to understand it better.