Pani Re Pani

Hindi/76 mins/2002
Producer: ZEE News, ZEE Telefilms Ltd.

Subject Focus: River linkage towards water

Summary: Maybe the first need to stay alive!! water!
India is about to confront a severe shortage of water. The ground water levels are fast depleting in areas of Rajasthan, Gujarat and some Deccan peninsular regions. Villagers experiencing scarcity are at many places walking a distance of more than ten kilometres to collect some water. Understanding the gravity of this problem, Zee News thought of exploring the topic. In a series of more than 25 stories, every aspect of the topic was exhaustively displayed. Five rivers, canals and dams were taken as samples and through them the approaching catastrophe was analysed. Three villages were case studied for showing the anxieties arising due to falling levels of ground water. The features from Punjab and Haryana for the first time exposed the dangerous conditions arising out of fast depleting water reservoirs. A country primarily driven by the wheel of agricultural activities, about to face acute shortage of water in leading agricultural states! Water intensive agriculture in these states is sucking away all the water. It is then understood that alternative modes of agriculture, using less water need to be developed. Subsequent to this realisation, a feature was done on the possibilities of such an expensive research exercise at the state level. It is not possible for the state machinery to come up with less water using agricultural techniques in the next twenty odd years. In the far-off semi-peninsular regions of Karnataka and Tamilnadu , water has been causing some kind of a war! The features on complexities of sharing Cauvery river water, explained the political and socio-agricultural fall-out arising out of the need of water. There were stories which depicted extreme conditions arising out of water scarcity in urban areas. The governmental plans and procedures to prevent this rising difficulty was also comprehensively probed. The plausibility of the concept of integrating various water bodies of the country for optimum division of water in all the regions of the country was the main focus of one of the stories in the series.