A UN report published on water conservation in March 2014 says that India will face the consequences if it does not plan water conservation. The report had predicted that by 2025, nearly 3.4 billion people will be living in ‘water-scarce’ countries. The report added that due to its unique geographical position in South Asia, the Indian sub-continent may face the brunt of the crisis and the country will be at the centre of this conflict. As per the Ministry of Water Resources, India has 18 per cent of the world’s population but only four per cent of total usable water resources.
The reason, experts say, for this water crisis is that India’s annual per capita availability of water decreased from 6,042 cubic meter in 1947 to 1,545 cubic meter in 2011. By 2025, the annual per capita availability of water will reduce to 1,340 cubic metre and by 2050, to 1,140 cubic metre. Second, 90 per cent of waste water discharged into the rivers fails to meet environmental norms. Third, 65 per cent rainwater runoff goes into the sea, which is a huge waste. Fourth, the agriculture sector is the biggest user of water followed by domestic and industrial sectors. So, environmentalists want water conservation to be a priority policy subject.
Himanshu Thakkar of the South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People tells you that the country was aware in September 2015 that it had received less than normal rainfall. “There should have been an analysis of groundwater levels, the drought regions and the ground situation in each district and plans put in place to ensure that the situation didn’t escalate to what it is today 266 districts in 11 States have been declared drought-hit. The 2015 South-west monsoon, which irrigates over half of India’s crop area, recorded a 14 per cent deficit, while 2014 saw a 12 per cent deficit. In the Marathwada region, this figure stood at nearly 49 per cent. The National Commission on Agriculture (1976) had identified 74 districts as drought prone areas that receive an annual rainfall up to 60 cm. On top of this, there have been States like Bihar, Gujarat and Haryana hesitating in declaring drought in their region. This is not what is needed in a scenario where 33 crore people are affected; the States need to be more proactive,” Thakkar says.
There are ways in which the present crisis could have been averted. “The most important thing to do would have been to stop water supply to non-essential areas like watering lawns, washing cars, reduce water usage in all sectors and divert this water to essential usage for drinking. There is need to store every drop of water — rainwater harvesting and recharging ground level water. Our people are aware of the problems that come with drought. We have the technology to tide over the crisis. Unfortunately, there is no plan in place. Not that it can’t be done. Places like Solapur have shown they way by taking measures to prevent recurrence of scarcity like well/borewell, recharging, desilting of water bodies to increase storage capacity. Hence, this district is better off than latur. The methods are cost-effective and result oriented,” Thakkar points out.
Dams over streams and rivers, to generate electricity and for irrigation, have added to the woes. These dams affect the quality of drinking water.
“The rampant construction of dams has affected the water situation. These were built to provide hydroelectricity. However, it has been found that many of these have not been able to function to capacity. This means that there is wastage of funds and water because the minute you construct a dam, the flow of the river is hit as is the ground water table. The resources could have been better utilised,” Thakkar opines.
Some experts say that South Asia is a ‘water-insecure region’ and India’s shortages are part of a global crisis. According to a report by UN climate scientists, coastal areas in Asia will be among the worst affected by climate change. Hundreds of millions of people across East, South-east and South Asia, the report concluded, will be affected by flooding, droughts, famine, increase in the costs of food and energy, and rising sea levels.
“South Asia faces multi-dimensional water challenges from growing demand of water. These are in terms of quality, availability and uneven distribution. This also includes depleting ground water. Unplanned urbanisation and expanding industrialisation are drastically downgrading water quality. Climate variability and monsoon unpredictability is adding to the water woes. There is huge inefficiency and wastage in water usage in various sectors, particularly agriculture. Water has now become a pressing environmental challenge. This is an ironic situation given our cultural and civilisational connect and symbiotic relationship with water,” Uttam Kumar Sinha, fellow, Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses tells you.
Another reason for the water crisis is that many Himalayan rivers are intimately tied to territory issues as rivers enter areas where there is border dispute between two or three States. Rivers criss-crossing States in South Asia are territorial. “For example, the Indus flows through parts of Kashmir which Pakistan illegally holds. The Indus river, that originates in Tibet, flows into ladakh and the Chinese always seek to claim the river by claiming territory, for example the Dokbug area. Pakistan laying claim to Kashmir means claiming the waters of the Indus river system. Similarly, the Brahmaputra is linked with the Sino-Indian border dispute in the eastern Himalayas, wherein China claims the territory of Arunachal Pradesh from where the Brahmaputra enters India. Since most rivers originate from, flow through and drain into territorially defined boundaries, it will not be easy to ignore the competition for water as well as the significance of the Himalayan watershed from where the shared rivers originate,” Sinha explains.
The Himalayan watershed may well be described as the hydrological faultline. South Asian States have developed along river systems that are intricately connected from the source (the glaciers in the mountains) to the mouth (the deltas). This interdependence has been less understood when policymakers focus on borders and territorial disputes contributing to the water shortage in India.
“The country’s dependency on trans-boundary rivers or the Himalayan rivers is huge. For example, Indus, Sutluj and Brahmaputra are all trans-boundary. More than 45 per cent of the Ganga water comes from tributaries across India. However, water shortage is linked more to water resource management and wastage, lack of storage capacity and poor demand-side management of water than territory. Issues of water access, who gets how much and when are always contested. So are upstream withdrawal and downstream grievances. A comprehensive water policy will require domestic water challenges to link with the external water situation. It will also require a careful merger of science, politics and people in water policies,” says Sinha, a Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific (CSCAP)-India representative for water resources security.
In urban areas, the crisis is compounded by extensive concretisation of land surface, which puts urban water bodies and channels into disrepair and even destroys them. Then there is urbanisation without infrastructure in new, rapidly urbanising settlements, the absence of strict water use norms, difficulties of retrofitting urban buildings for rainwater harvesting (RWH) and ground water recharge (GWR), and the constant extension of urban water footprints, thereby disincentivising economies in use.
“In both urban and rural areas, local water crises are also created by problems related to the distribution network. For example, some large supposed to provide irrigation water in rural areas have last-mile problems. The projects are completed but the network of canals to take the water to end users is inadequate. In our towns and cities, old and decaying underground pipelines often lead to both water losses and contamination, and it isn’t easy to modernise entire water supply networks in built up areas,” Mahadevan Ramaswamy, who is working on a book on water disputes, conflicts and controversies says.
The answer to the complex problem has to be multi-faceted. Best would be to eschew magic wand solutions and become committed to bringing about changes on several fronts. “If I were to single out one solution, it would be a greater impetus to demand management than to supply augmentation. This includes and is supplemented by a lot of things. Modifications in cropping patterns, efforts to get ‘more crop for less drop’, restoration of traditional water bodies, better participative, localised watershed management in conjunction with basin level planning, vigorous promotion of RWH and GWR, better infrastructural planning for rapidly growing new urban settlements, pricing policies that subsidise lifeline water while making wasteful uses of water expensive, sourcing and replenishing water locally, better waste water treatment as well as recycling for some uses, an attempt to learn from traditional water management and coping strategies, and so on are needed,” Mahadevan tells you.
At the individual level too, things can be done. Small common sense measures like not leaving the tap running when one’s brushing one’s teeth, switching water pumps off before storage tanks overflow, choosing drinking water filters that discard less waste water for the clean water they provide, filling finite amounts of water in buckets for bathing rather than using showers, or choosing dual mode flushing systems for our toilets. “Most of all, what is required is a change in our attitudes towards water. We must realise that money and engineering can’t create endless supplies of water. It is a finite and precious resource that will be adequate if it is used wisely,” Mahadevan says.
A fact that is corroborated by Dinesh Mishra of Barh Mukti Abhiyan but, this according to him, has riders to it. “Things are changing very fast. There were regions that were getting 1,400 cm of rains which is now down to 1,000 cm. Bihar, a region known for floods, has not had one since 2007. If there is a drought in this State, Maharashtra and other States are bound to face it too. Then there are floods in areas where they never occurred. This is all due to climate change. It is something that we need to accept and devise a strategy to deal with these changes,” Mishra says.
The rivers have no water and hence linking them will also be a waste of time and money, he tells you. “When there was water, nothing was done, now there is no point. Fresh water is precious, it has to be used judiciously. Changing cropping pattern has not helped matters. Why can’t North India grow paddy and sugarcane where there is water and let the drought-prone States grow pulsesIJ” he asks, adding that mankind has managed to ruin everything that Nature has bestowed.
“Humans managed to live and thrive for millions of years and preserve Nature. But in the last 400 years we have stripped Nature of everything. Cutting down trees, polluting the air, the soil and even water. It is our doing and we have to pay a price,” Mishra tells you.
Manoj Misra of PEACE Institute, New Delhi and the man behind Yamuna Jiye Abhiyaan tells you that it is all about State versus Centre since water is a State subject and the general attitude is that in any water-related crisis, the State should step in to take corrective measures instead of seeing it as a disaster and wanting aiding from the Centre. “There is no policy despite directives and guidelines from the Centre on what the States should do in such situations. But there is political maneouvering for a subject that requires non-political measures to address the situation. There is need for pre-emptive action that is both short and long term; a strategy has to be in place. The administration in the State needs to have a vision in case the rains fail. This is something that can be done and has been done at various district levels, so it is not an impossible task,” Misra tells you.
The minute there is a crisis, water should be prioritised it should only be for drinking purpose and nothing else. “There are a total of 5,000 dams in India, of which 1,000 are in Maharashtra. Also, the State has always been drought prone and one should be growing cereals like bajra andjowar and not paddy or sugarcane that need so much water. Another reason for the present crisis, especially in this State, is that as a nation and as individuals we are very dependent on water. We want the State to do everything right from distributing water via tanks or trains, thereby creating a panic situation,” Mishra says, adding that there are lessons to be learnt here.
“First, and this is the most important lesson that needs to be learnt water needs to be decentralised. There is need to make millions and millions of small reservoirs where water can be collected; not one centralised. Second, timely action should be taken. Third, there is need for the media to become a watchdog, highlight and create awareness about importance of water,” Mishra says.