The problem with water

I have a faint memory of living in a country where I turned the tap on and water came out, where I had baths, used washing machines and we complained about the regular rain.

For the last few days I've been living in Jaipur, where the availability of water is very different. In my family's house there, water only comes out of the taps from 5am until 6.45am. Most of the household wake up for 5, armed with buckets and water pots. Two doors down is GVNML's accounts office, so a long hose is used to link the office tap to the water storage tanks in the family home. Next door is a small temple and this tap is also used for filling the buckets of various residents of the street.
There are on average 10 people living in the Jaipur family home at any one time, usually a combination of children attending school in Jaipur, and mothers or fathers looking after them or in the city for business meetings. It's estimated that it takes 1,000 litres of water to run the house, for washing bodies, clothes and kitchen pots, for cooking and for drinking, and most importantly, for using in the coolers that make the soaring temperatures bearable. Even with the extra supply of water from the office and the temple, what comes through the tap usually isn't enough.

Three months ago the taps ran for two hours each morning and evening, but since the water cuts a government water aid tanker has been coming to this street every afternoon. At around 3pm the children stand ready to refill their buckets then sign the government slip as evidence the tanker has stopped at their house.

There are areas of Jaipur worse hit than ours. The Times of India recently reported that certain parts of the city are having their daily water supply cut by 10 minutes. "The measures were taken to tide over the crisis facing the city and stretch the resources considering the delay of the monsoon in the state." 100 protesters mobbed the Public Health Engineering Department (PHED), fighting against the erratic water supply and demanding more tankers. One protester said, "We have not been getting a proper water supply for the last 15 days and when we ask for water tankers the officials are evasive. They do not listen to us."

The problem is that Jaipur has no water supply of its own. Water comes from the Bisalpur Dam which was originally large enough to supply eight districts in Rajasthan, but now it's drying up fast. My sister told me that in 2 weeks the dam will be empty. Again, the Times of India reported "Expected to give 400 MLD (millions of litre per day) of water, the government is now fighting tooth and nail to draw even 20 MLD per day". PHED officials said, "At best it is only for 10 days more that we can supply water from here. After that Jaipur will have to be totally dependent on ground water and this project will have to wait for the rain god's mercy."

After years of exploiting groundwater in Jaipur, there isn't much left to draw from wells or bore holes. Last Tuesday The Hindu newspaper announced a 40 crore (£5.6m) emergency plan led by The Government of Rajasthan's Water Resources Department to supply water to Jaipur and Ajmer districts until the end of July in an attempt to maintain normal levels of water supply. Senior officials and engineers said, "The delay in monsoon rains had made the water supply situation very critical in the State, which was already grappling with paucity of water." Drinking water will be brought on trains from Kota, in Western Rajasthan.

As the BBC weather forecast promises daily rain, we are still waiting for the downpours that will save this city from dehydration. I am lucky, on Sunday I will return to Laporiya where we've got our own well, with enough water it in to not worry about washing twice a day, and scrubbing clothes clean.