Pollution

WATER POLLUTION 

India suffers from increased urbanization, unauthorized slums and the absence of pipe planning. Estimations suggest that by 2030, 600 million Indians might live in slums due to the ever-growing population. Because of that, tanker mafias are prominent. Tanker mafias are business owners that hold septic tanks that illegally sell water from lakes, wells and groundwater. They charge around $50 per 1,000 liters, and for most Indians, it is unaffordable.
Between the years of 2001 and 2012, 3,245 hectares of lakes dissipated in the city of Hyderabad. The water recedes by nine feet a year on average in southern New Delhi — all because of tanker mafias. Oil leaks, inadequate treatment of waste, poor sanitation and open defecation are the leading causes of water pollution in India. By drinking dirty water, the human digestive system suffers from harmful bacteria that disrupts the balance of the gut, causing diarrhea and other diseases.

The Consequences of India’s Poor Water Quality

Around 70% of wastewater goes untreated and each day, more than 40 million liters of wastewater flows directly into India’s lakes, rivers and ocean. Eventually, contaminated water also enters the groundwater. Because of this, proper waste management and sewage pollution cannot occur, upsetting the irrigation system. The crops are not able to grow because of the infectious bacteria and disease in the water. Because of the poor infrastructure and absence of sewage control, 38 million Indians suffer from waterborne diseases like typhoid, cholera and hepatitis every year. Over the last decade, the frequency of these illnesses remained at the same level. 
Worldwide, waterborne diseases cause more deaths than AIDS, tuberculosis and measles combined in children under 5-years-old. Water pollution in India not only harms people’s health and food security, but it also contributes to the decrease in India’s GDP and economic stagnation. Not only does GDP growth reduce by one-third when the pollution in the country’s waterbodies exceeds a certain limit, but agricultural revenues lower by 9% in the districts that are close to industrial territories. The degradation of the environment, including water pollution in India, leads to a loss of $80 billion annually. Meanwhile, estimates determine that the health costs to treat waterborne diseases are almost $9 billion per year.