India’s Water Conundrum: Beyond the Tipping Point?
Water is very much in the news in India. The talk is about crises – in agriculture, in industry, and in the municipal sector. In many ways, the crises are not of recent origin; they have been around for at least 2 decades if not longer. The solutions to the crises are the usual – rainwater harvesting, micro irrigation, bigger and better storages, etc. These are simplistic, for want of a less charitable term. Water is an extremely complex discipline with individuals, organizations, and politics closely interlinked. Of course, water is also a highly emotive subject given its centrality to life, economies and societies. A broad measure of India’s water situation is the per capita availability of water. It has declined to about 1,400 cubic meters annually – compared to almost 6,000 at Independence in 1947 – and will decline further as urban and industrial growth accelerates, and our population increases. We are in an era of economic water scarcity. This means that it is getting economically difficult to access freshwater. A good example is multipurpose dams whose reservoirs store water for hydropower, irrigation, and flood control. India is running out of storage sites. Difficulties with dams in the lower Himalayas have been reported on. Another example is groundwater. With aquifers depleting rapidly across the country, tube-well based irrigation and urban water supplies are becoming a difficult proposition. When the number declines to 1,000 cubic meters per capita, India will face physical water scarcity. In fact, parts of India, especially South India, Rajasthan, and parts of Bihar and UP are already in the grip of physical scarcity. A recent NITI Ayog report says that 600 million Indians live with either high or extreme water stress. India’s water issues are relatively well known but mainly in their thematic and administrative silos. There is a fragmentation of agencies that deal with water at both State and Central levels. Numerous ministries and departments are involved, and co-ordination has been a challenge especially since the Constitution provides for Water being a state subject. Of course, this is not unique to India – many, if not most, countries in Asia are similarly placed. Will India’s water crisis become worse? Most research seems to say Yes. By some estimates, the demand for water in India in 2030 will outstrip supply by almost 100%. There are numerous schemes sponsored by the Central, State, and local governments to either augment water supplies, conserve water, recharge groundwater, rejuvenate water bodies, or invest in rainwater harvesting. These schemes have worked, and continue to work, at different levels of success. But all of them miss one key point: Efficiency. This is a paradigm that India needs to adopt – and the only one at that. India’s agriculture sector takes an estimated 84% of total freshwater available estimated at 850 billion cubic meters (bcm), and further estimated to increase to 1,072 bcm by 2050, almost twice the figure in China. This irrigates about 49% of all farmlands (140 million hectares). The problem is the degree of efficiency with which water is used. Water has to be conveyed through irrigation channels to farm fields – we call this conveyance efficiency. Equally critical is application efficiency – how well do we apply water to our fields. India currently has an average efficiency of 38%. Given that groundwater comprises 60% of our irrigation effort, and that it requires little or no conveyance, it tells you how inefficient our surface irrigation is. Comparable figures in China and Australia are 55% and 85%. To be blunt, nothing short of a revolution in farm hydraulics can help. Moving water to and around farms requires ‘smart’ concepts. Water will have to be captured and stored locally; public irrigation systems have failed and are sub-optimal at the best of times. Atomistic irrigation is the new norm and will expand exponentially. Digitized automation will be key as urban migration continues and farm labor shortages increase. We use 25% of the world’s groundwater; 90% of it goes to agriculture. The remaining 10% (equivalent to 24 billion cubic meters) supplies about 85% of the country’s drinking water. India has been a profligate user of groundwater. Although groundwater was the principal driver of the ‘green revolution’, it quickly degenerated into a wasteful resource driven by free energy supplies to farms. The groundwater ‘anarchy’, as it is now commonly known, must be addressed by new technologies that reduce energy costs and align with micro irrigation systems. But this by itself will not help. India needs tough licensing policies that put limits on groundwater withdrawals. Groundwater management means striking a sensible balance between abstraction and recharge. With extremely high rates of abstractions and falling groundwater tables, most of India’s groundwater aquifers are in precarious condition. What is worse is that aquifers beneath 387 of India’s 676 geographic regions also contain hazardous concentrations of one or more of several serious contaminants including pesticides, arsenic, chromium, lead, cadmium, and nitrates. Which means that using that water without expensive treatment is putting lives at risk. India’s use of micro irrigation is still miniscule – coverage is less than 8 million hectares. This must grow. Inefficiencies will persist if investments are not scaled up rapidly. What do I see as the future of farm hydraulics? Conveyance losses will have to decline by adopting new technologies in pumps, pipes, leakage control, and pressure management systems. Farmers will need multiple crop options and water transport systems will have to respond. Finally, farm water quality will have to improve; irrigation run-off and drainage will take on whole new meanings. This is the revolution that needs to be engineered. And time is not on our side. But even if India has the ability to engineer this revolution, the question is whether it has the money to do so. India’s agriculture is addicted to subsidies worth about $48 billion annually. While these subsidies are the stuff of politics, if even half this number is invested in reducing the water footprint of Indian agriculture, our