60 years of freedom, Nuclear India, No potable drinking water

While going to a client's factory today, I took another route to avoid traffic jam on the normal route. At one point I saw a water tanker with hundreds of people gathered around it. The people were holding buckets in their hands and were pushing and pulling others to reach the tanker where with the help of a pipe tanker staff were filling their buckets. My taxi driver told me that no water comes in the pipeline in this area for more than a year and they have to depend on water taken from wells and hand pumps, which is not safe for drinking. The tanker is hardly sufficient to meet the needs of all the people.

This is the scenario in many parts of Delhi, the capital city of India. The situation in other parts of the country is much worse than this. Politicians raise slogans - 'Mera Bharat Mahan', 'India is on the move', 'India shining'; but Indian people do not get safe water to drink.

In 60 years of its independence, India has made lot of progress. It has become a nuclear power. But it has not been able to meet one basic needs of its people, safe drinking water.