Predicament to Celebrate the World Water Day in many parts of Manipur

Asem Tomba Meetei *

Fetching water with bowl

The Predicament to Celebrate the World Water Day in many parts of Manipur and with special reference to Nongpok Sekmai and surrounding villages

Water is one of the most essential human needs on earth as well as those who are living in space stations. One of the most important milestones in the history of United Nations in the water policy, was the adoption of a day to celebrate freshwater, which was recommended at the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro. The United Nations General Assembly adopted resolution A/RES/47/193 of 22 December 1992 in which, 22 March of each year was declared as World Day for Water, which is to be observed starting in 1993, in conformity with the recommendations of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), which contained in Chapter 18 (Fresh Water Resources) of Agenda 21. Since then International World Water Day has been observed each year on 22 March.

Since the 1993, there has been paradigm shift in the water policy theme. The theme, we have in this year 2015, is 'Water and Sustainable Development'.

In 1994, the theme was 'Caring for our Water Resources is Everybody's Business', 'Women and Water (1995), 'Water for Thirsty Cities (1996). 'The World's Water: Is there enough? (1997), 'Groundwater-The Invisible Resource' (1998), 'Everyone Lives Downstream' (1999), 'Water for the first Century' (2000), 'Water for Health' (2001), 'Water for Development' (2002), 'Water for Future' (2003), 'Water and Disasters' (2004), 'Water for Life' (2005-2015), 'Water and Culture' (2006), 'Coping with Water Scarcity' (2007), 'Sanitation' (2008), 'Trans Waters' (2009), 'Clean Water for a Healthy World' (2010), 'Water for cities: responding to the urban challenge' (2011), 'Water and Food Security: The world is Thirsty because we are hungry' (2012), 'Water Cooperation' (2013), 'Water and Energy' (2014).

These different themes have different policies and agendas and water management policies in every area of human society and our ecosystem. Why I have mentioned all the themes starting from 1994 until 2015, is that all these themes have not so far been influenced in making good policies and water management in many Parts of the state through state mechanisms.

Fetching water with bowl

In Many rural parts of the state and even in and around the capital, there are still people who never see the 'tape water' in their live time. In this connection, I as a researcher had personally experienced during my field work that the villagers are still deprived of safe drinking water. Here, one important worth mentioning of the origin of the village according to Shri Kulchandra Singh, the high priest of Manipur Pandit Loisang (1993) is that the 'Sekmai' was derived from 'Sengmai', which connotes 'Sengba' meaning 'pure' and thus Nongpok Sekmai was one of the ten villages of Chakpas, which means that the villagers of Nongpok Sekmai fall under the category of 'Lois' (Singh, 1993, p.4). The Sikhong Sekmai Nagar Panchayat has a population of 7,390 (Census, 2011).

A small stream, as I would like to refer to as the level of the water and river-belly has shrunk for the last many years owing to anthropogenic activities and as a result the aquifers no longer contain much water as a great number of trees have been felled down from the forests. The most shocking empirical evident is that many of the rivers-belly have shrunk and Awang Sekmai River is a good example of it.

The fate of the villagers in Nongpok Sekmai and surrounding villages largely depend on Nongpok Sekmai river, which flows toward North side, which is very remarkable in the state. The villagers, especially the women folk and girls use to fetch water with a bowl from the small open shallow hand- dug well and pour it inside their pitchers.

It was observed that the fetching of water of a full pitcher took around 20-30 minutes, which means that they have a time deficit in maintaining the household works and moreover the long distance walking with the pitcher on their head also caused neck pain, back pain as complaint by some women folk in the village. The quality of the water is also decreasing as many unwanted things are thrown from the Sikhong Sekmai Bazar, which is the upstream of the river.

Fetching water with bowl

It is observed that there is less discussion among the civil society in the villages for their rights to access to safe drinking water. It has been around 12 years since 2003 when I left the village that the same situation of water facility is still only available to the community of Nongpok Sekmai and surrounding villages i.e. the small open hand-dug well by the river stream side.

It clearly shows that, the villagers have been deprived of safe drinking water and there has not so far been any program and policy for the welfare of these villages under Sikhong Sekmai Nagar Panchat in Heirok Kendra, Thoubal District. However, it is acknowledged that a small water supply scheme has initiated but the work has not yet been completed due to negligence of the government.

There has also been complaint of so many villagers suffering from water borne diseases. Many schemes came and will come but why still villagers cannot access to safe drinking water? My question to safe drinking water has implications for health, socio-economic conditions and well-being of both rural and urban equally. Most of the villagers in these villages have their source of unhygienic drinking water from three main sources namely
1. Small hand-dug open well by the river stream side
2. Pond water and during rainy season they harvest water from the roof of the tin, which is also not safe to drink.

Therefore, it is pertinent that the government should take up some practical ways to solve the issue of drinking water in both rural and urban areas.