Booming Marble Trade Sucks Up Water In One Of India's Driest States - BBC

[hatrack]

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Rajasthan is one of India's driest states. It gets little rain compared to other parts of India and has been hit by drought several years in a row. But in Kishangarh, as in many other parts of the state, the natural problem is exacerbated by human intervention.

The town is an important centre for the lucrative marble trade being conveniently located near marble mines and also because of its proximity to the main Delhi-Mumbai (Bombay) highway. Large blocks of marble are brought here from quarries and cut and polished, before being ferried to customers across India. The local Makrana marble was, for instance, used to build the Taj Mahal.

But it is a process which needs large quantities of water - in an area which has very little of the precious resource. The Anant Sree Sangamarmar marble factory is one of 400 marble cutting units in Kishangarh, which between them employ nearly a 100,000 people.

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High-speed water jets are used to spray the blocks and keep them cool while they are being cut to size. This one factory alone uses 10,000 litres of water a day, pumped entirely from the area's groundwater sources. Groundwater is also the only source of water for the many villagers who live in the area and depend on farming for their livelihood. "They use so much water while we barely have enough to cover our basic sanitary needs, let alone water our crops," says Gopal Gujar a local farmer. Like the more than two million villagers who live in the vast district of which Kishangarh is the capital, Gujar is forced to buy water from private suppliers to supplement his daily supply."

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3755780.stm