Nothing short of a complete overhaul or rethinking the approach towards water bodies is needed if India were to fight its water crisis without paying too heavy price.
* Water bodies are important to recharge groundwater and absorb excess rain to prevent flooding
* Water bodies in India are fast disappearing triggering drought situations and water shortage
* The significance of restoring or reviving water bodies cannot be overemphasised
For far too long the central and state governments have paid lip service to the one water resource that may provide the maximum dividend.
While groundwater resources and rivers have attracted sufficient attention of policy makers in India, as India fights water crisis, water bodies which are the other key source of water have slipped under their radar.
This is surprising, given the key role water bodies — lakes, ponds/tanks, baolis and other such natural or man-made structures — have played in supply of drinking water, other domestic needs and agriculture through the ages.
These water bodies are also important for their potential to recharge groundwater and absorb excess rain to prevent urban flooding.
Encroachment of water bodies has been identified as a "major cause" of flash floods in Mumbai (2005), Uttarakhand (2013), Jammu and Kashmir (2014) and Chennai (2015) in the past one-and-half decades.
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