Rendezvous with Kallar

Residents of Ghumarwin are dependant on municipal water supply for their drinking water needs. Typically, water is supplied two hrs in morning - 6 to 8 AM and then half hour to 45 min in the evening - 5:30 PM onwards. This is apparently more than sufficient for all drinking, cleaning, washing and other needs. There are few handpumps also provided but they are not too many and are used in cases of emergency.

Right now, it is rainy season here, and I observed that the municipal water, supplied now-a-days, is not clean. It has some brownish stuff in it. On inquiring I was told by one of the neighbours that during rainy season, this is the kind of water the entire town gets. On further enquiry, I got to know that the water supply is sourced from a small river (called khadd in local language). The municipal water supply is solely dependant on it. So, in peak summers, when it is reduced to a very thin line of water, water supply gets reduced to just half hour in the morning, with nothing in the evening, or vice-versa.

Yesterday, when I was travelling to Kallar I observed the khadd and the water in it. Due to recent rains, there was quite a lot of water in the khadd but it was all muddy. I thought about it for a moment and suddenly everything became crystal clear in front of my eyes. Due to widespread deforestation and being a hilly terrain, whenever it rains, soil erosion happens. Obviously, all the soil, swept away by water goes into the rivers, and in this case, in the khadd. Considering that the water supply is sourced from this khadd, obviously, the water pumped in this town has all the soil/mud in it. I was amazed to see how a problem, induced by humans, is coming back and biting humans only, though in a different form - deforestation is preventing potable water supply. Never before this, I had ever witnessed nature taking such quick and cruel revenge on human beings.

Something very interesting happened yesterday in the evening - for the very first time, in 3 weeks since I am here, I observed that there was disruption in electricity supply for longer than 5 min, and that too twice within a span of two hours. I was wondering what could be wrong. My thought process started. The very first thing which struck my mind was the fact that Himachal has surplus power which it provides to neighbouring states, primarily Delhi, so how come, it is having power issues. The second thing which came to my head was that Himachal has lots of hydro-power projects and this is rainy season, and just now it rained quite heavily, and yet there is a power problem. Suddenly, a World Bank project report on SJVN (Sutlej Jal Vidyut Nigam) project flashed in front of my eyes. This hydro-power project is under construction in Rampur region and it takes the water coming out of another already-commissioned hydro power project - Nathpa Jhakri. The report has mentioned the problem of high silt content in the intake waters of Nathpa Jhakri project which would affect its discharged water and hence the intake of SJVN project. Immediately, I realized why the electric supply is having problems. The same muddy water (high silt content) would have travelled to the Nathpa Jhakri project where turbines would have stopped functioning due to high silt content of water, resulting in power supply disruption. So, the deforestation in high hills of Himachal (and elsewhere) is affecting not only the residents of Ghumarwin for drinking water but also the residents of Delhi for power supply, that too in sweltering heat.

As a music to my ears and a confirmation to my theory, today's Chandigarh edition of Times of India had a page 2 story about how Delhi residents faced problems due to additional power outage as Nathpa Jhakri plant in Himachal stopped functioning for 5 hrs due to high silt content in the water.