1 18 EDITORIAL & OPINION The Business Times, Friday, August 15, 2014 Global water scene not as rosy as officially painted In South Asia, for example, there is no clean water that can be drunk directly from taps By ASIT K BISWAS “Water, water, everywhere, Nor any drop to drink.” MORE than two centuries ago, Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote those lines in his immortal poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner Coleridge’s ancient mariner was stranded day after day in the middle of an ocean on a motionless ship because there was no wind. The freshwater supply had run out. Thus, his statement was fully understandable. However, about 220 years after the poem was published, even for freshwater the situations in many parts of the world have become very similar to what the ancient mariner faced. The situation has now become so grim that even rivers, lakes or underground waters near any urban centres of the developing world, cannot be drunk without significant treatment because of health concerns. At present, according to studies carried out by the Third World Centre for Water Management, at least three billion people, and possibly as many as 3.6 billion people, still do not have access to clean drinking water. This is significantly higher than the entire population of the world when Coleridge wrote his remarkable poem. There are many reasons for this sad state of affairs.  First, throughout history, water has been taken for granted. It has been used extensively and abused intensively without considering its future availability. One would be hard pressed to find a single country anywhere in the world where water has been managed efficiently and rationally for even the past 30 years, let alone over a longer period. Not surprisingly, and as a direct result of this continued mismanagement, nearly all water sources in and around urban centres of the developing world are now under considerable stress, because of overuse as well as poor water quality management practices.  Second, throughout the world, one would be hard pressed to find even a single country where the political leaders have considered water issues seriously on a consistent basis over the past three to four decades. Leaders become interested in water only when there is a severe flood or a serious drought or a Grim situation: In many parts of the world, water in rivers, lakes or underground near any urban centres of the developing world, cannot be drunk without significant treatment because of health concerns. PHOTO: REUTERS