SOCIO ECOLOGY OF DOMESTIC WATER CONSUMPTION IN INDIA: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF SCARCITY AND CONTAMINATION REGIONS~#

摘要

The present paper compares the socio-ecology of groundwater in two different social situations. In one place water is scarce and risk of scarcity is visible to the society. On the other place people have plenty of water although contaminated with arsenic whose effect is not readily visible. It explores the environmental knowledge, awareness and perceptions regarding domestic water consumption, and conservation behaviour. The data for this study are collected from West Bengal, an eastern state of India. Two geographically and culturally different regions were selected for the study, viz. Purulia and North 24 Parganas, one facing scarcity of water and another facing groundwater contamination. The Purulia district of West Bengal belongs to the arid zone and is facing scarcity of water. During the dry season, existing ground and surface water supplies dry out because the water table is dependent on limited monsoon rains. In addition to this, West Bengal is the worst arsenic affected state of India and North 24 Parganas district is severely affected zone of West Bengal where most of the groundwater is contaminated with arsenic. Thus, the villagers of Purulia are facing a visible risk of scarcity of water and the villagers of North 24 Parganas are facing an invisible risk whose consequences are severe and complex to interpret. In these two different contexts, there is a need to study water related environment beliefs, and emerging networks of flows of toxicities and technology with the aim of generating new solutions. The study has following objectives: First, it explores the factors determining water consumption and conservation behavior (sources and uses of water) of the people for household purposes in the two regions. Second, it seeks to address a comparative assessment of health effects of drinking water consumption in two regions. This paper brings out the differences in the two regions in both life chances and levels of awareness. It can also be inferred that the nature of risk too determines the beliefs and consumption patterns which in turn ascertain the demand for infrastructure. Undoubtedly, the state support is required for building the infrastructure to solve water problem and the top-down approach of the government should be replaced by bottom-up model. The study suggests that the governmental and non-governmental actors have different roles to play for the different social practices, their role being dependent on the historical process and the tasks at hand.