Speaking on South First's Let’s Talk Water podcast with Nolan Pinto, she says that water is a shared resource and does not belong to only a few with complete control over it.
Published Feb 02, 2025 | 3:09 PM ⚊ Updated Feb 02, 2025 | 3:09 PM
Odette Katrak,
Odette Katrak, an environment and sustainability changemaker strongly believes the time has come for India to have a water commons policy to solve the water crisis we are facing.
Speaking on South First‘s Let’s Talk Water podcast with Nolan Pinto, she says that water is a shared resource and does not belong to only a few with complete control over it.
A “water commons policy” aims to manage water resources as a common property for the benefit of communities with the goal of ensuring that water is available to all people and ecosystems.
Odette is popularly known for bathing with just three mugs of water and also for her original framework to save water called Ecowaternomics.
She is of the view that this can be done if water resources are managed properly by the State.
“To manage water resources, definitely I believe the government is the biggest stakeholder. They are supposed to look at all water resources in terms of rivers, etc,” adding that in cities like Bengaluru where we do get good rains, “If that rainwater is not seeping in and recharging the water table, all of that is the government’s mandate.”
However, her concern is with the behaviour of a majority of city residents.
“My concern is the whole, 80-90 percent of residents of any city who believe it is the government’s job to provide water. I pay taxes so the government should give the water. So, it does not really matter to them how much they consume. If they consume more, they believe they are paying the water bill so it does not matter.”
Odette says Bengaluru’s weather is the main culprit here.
“Since it is not burning hot half the year or most of the year, it dulls people into not realizing that there is a water shortage,” she says.
“When you are travelling to Rajasthan or Delhi, you see cracked parched earth. The instinct to use water more carefully comes more naturally,” she opined.
But in Bengaluru, “You look all around you. There is lovely greenery, and foliage. All corporate campuses have nice large landscaping. So, we are lulled into a false sense of complacency that there is no real water shortage.”
Watch the entire conversation on the Podcast.
