kolkata over 60 of 211 freshwater sources in seven wards in the southern and southeastern parts of the city surveyed by citizens were found to be in a terrible state the water is not fit for any kind of use garbage has been dumped in water bodies to fill them up partially or entirely for real estate development a majority of these wards has serious water scarcity and water tankers are stationed there on a daily basis to plug the demandsupply gapwe always tend to think kolkata blessed with abundance of water will not face water scarcity but the ground reality is shocking most of the water bodies have been turned into dump yards half of them continue to be the source of food or fish stock and are biodiversity hot spots said sayantani dutta an environmental researcher who is part of the group called jaladarsha collectivethe group was formed amid the pandemic after its members were alarmed by the looming threats of extreme weather events like cyclones and floods on the one hand and water scarcity in the city on the other the water scarcity issue has also been flagged in various ipcc reportsnearly 60 of the water bodies are in a really bad state they are situated in ward 92 jadavpur 67 picnic garden 127 sarsuna and 116 also in behala you dont need to test the water quality the repulsive filth and unbearable stench speak volumes of water quality she addedthe concerns of jaladarsha were echoed by power secretary s suresh kumar bengal has been blessed with ground water however there is increasing evidence now that in many districts it is depleting at a faster rate we need to act now before we cross the tipping point he said at a discussion organised by switchon foundation irrigation secretary prabhat mishra admitted that groundwater being out of sight was often out of mindon tuesday members collectively marched from the academy of fine arts to kmc headquarters with the demand to protect water bodies clean up ponds and tanks and make them encroachmentfree to prevent the real estate lobby from grabbing water bodies set up data management and information system on water bodies and grievance redress on urban water bodiesbengal pollution control board chairman kalyan rudra who was speaking at a conclave of the bharat chamber of commerce set alarm bell ringing by saying the riverlinking project will spell doom for entire water ecosystem of the country and the climate risk will be much higher that what it is now rudra who examined bengals rainfall pattern on a century scale found the distribution of rainfall already skewed which is affecting crops production