ministers of 190 countries, but our environment minister was not present. I told this audience that if the relationship between water and soil is forgotten and there is no water in the soil, the soil will establish its relationship with air and the air will move this dry soil to create a desert. It is, therefore, imperative to establish a relationship between the soil, moisture and air and I gave them the examples of how I had helped rejuvenate seven rivers in Rajasthan. From there I went to Israel to see how the government is using their water resources. In Israel, water has been placed in different categories. C class water is used to grow grains; B class water is used to grow fruits while A class water is used for growing vegetables and for drinking purposes. In India, A class water is being used to grow sugarcane. Ninety per cent of the water of the Ganga is being used to grow sugarcane. This is criminal. By now, the government should have initiated major steps to change our agricultural crop patterns. With our rain patterns becoming more erratic, the thrust should have been on growing drought resistant crops. I am a firm votary of the fact that the present centralized water management system in our country has proved to be a disaster.
The control of water must be handed over to communities and it has to become decentralized or we will face a water famine throughout the country. Countries which waste water will suffer. After winning the Stockholm Prize for water this year, I undertook a padyatra around the Los Angeles area in California which is facing drought. I was invited by the former Red Indian community now referred to as a reserved community to help them overcome their water crisis. Earlier, 25,000 reserved Indians used to live around the Owens lake area whose water used to feed Los Angeles and other cities in California. Today, their numbers are down to 2,000. The Owens lake has dried up and the government there has spent a whopping $ 120 billion to spread a network of roads across this Owens lake in order to bring down dust pollution levels. Can you imagine such an expensive remedy? All I can say is that the Americans are the spoilt race of God. You are being invited across the world to provide water solutions. Why is the Indian government not using your services? The Indian government is only interested in working with contractors. It does not work for the benefit of the people. Rather, it is a
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Integrated River Basin Management Society