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 water security would be assured without any impact on farm incomes or production volumes. Further, if we were to tackle food waste, currently at about 40% of total production, it would help materially in reducing our water bill.
What of the municipal sector? It drew 56 bcm of water in 2010, a number that is forecast to go to 102 bcm in 2050 premised mainly on urban and industrial growth. It will be virtually impossible to find new water of this magnitude given that our cities are already water short. Most of urban India loses between 40-70% of treated water. This is water that has been obtained at great cost and often from a great distance, e.g. Delhi that gets the bulk of its raw water from a source 300 km away. The energy, chemical, and labor costs incurred in transporting, treating, and distributing it are extremely high. Unfortunately, investments are not focused on reducing nonrevenue water. Instead, most investments go to new water sources, including those in already depleted groundwater fields.
A lesser-known fact is that intermittent water supplies – the norm in 99% of urban India – leads to numerous health issues. Variations in pressure cause pipe bursts, and since most supply pipes run close to sewer lines and stormwater drains, there is contamination that impacts on water quality. A 2013 study concluded that water-borne diseases account for 200,000 deaths annually, in addition to public health expenditures equivalent to $9 billion. This is obviously old data – it would seem to me that the numbers are much higher in 2024.
A word now about India’s public sanitation systems. These are not only inadequate but also generally poorly designed. About 30% of urban households are reported to have access to sewer lines; the rest rely on on-site systems such as septic tanks and pit latrines. Septic tanks and sewer lines leak all the time and, most clean water reticulation systems get polluted through seepage. About 78% of sewage generated in India remains untreated. The story is the same with wastewater where India produces about 73,000 million liters per day with only about 20,000 million liters treated to dubious standards. It is therefore unsurprising to see official government reports stating that more than 70% of India’s accessible water sources – both surface and ground – is contaminated. The point to note is that this contamination is not merely caused by the municipal sector but is also due to industrial pollution and unregulated discharge of effluent as well as the runoff from irrigated agriculture that is heavily laden with fertilizer and pesticide residue.
Local governments need to have only one genre of projects over the next 15 years: and that is projects that reduce nonrevenue water. Cities like Manila and Phnom Penh have done so. It is not difficult. Nor is it half as expensive as new source development. The saved water will not only service those who are currently unserved but will also generate revenues. At the same time India’s cities need to go down the circular economy path. All raw sewage and septic tank discharge must be treated and treated to standards that allow reuse by a variety of markets. Peri-urban agriculture is already a market for treated wastewater; so are power plants and industries that are victims of inadequate or unpredictable water supplies.
It is true that efficiency in water supplies, or the development of a circular water economy, will not be optimized without the right institutional arrangements. But we cannot wait for India to rationalize its highly fragmented water world and create unified systems where public utility and consumer interests are regulated independently, and where the costs of providing an efficient service are recovered. Let us note that ‘free’ water to consumers is a false concept and has not worked anywhere. Likewise, the mantra that says “lets fix the institutions first; they will take care of the pipes” is delusional, certainly in the Indian milieu. It does not make sense to make perfect the enemy of the good. No further time should be lost in reducing India’s staggering nonrevenue water. There cannot be any other higher priority if social equity and sustained economic growth is to be ensured.
Let me share the amazing story of Odisha, perhaps India’s only silver lining on the water and sanitation horizon. Puri was the first and only Indian city so far to be provided with 24/7 drink from tap water supplies. The city of Bhubaneswar is now fully metered – the second city, after Puri, to be fully metered. 110 of the State’s 114 urban local bodies have a fecal sludge treatment plant each – all built in the last 3 years and operating efficiently. The State has invested in 200 vacuum trucks that are deployed to clean out septic tanks at regular intervals. The Odisha Pollution Control Board has reported a 75% decline in the pollution load in the State’s water bodies over the past 3 years. And not a single fatality on account of water-borne disease has been reported in the past 2 years. And to my personal delight, Odisha is the first State in the country to have corporatized its water services by setting up the Water Corporation of Odisha. I say personal delight because my experience tells me that urban water and sanitation services are best delivered by corporate entities.
Let me turn briefly to the Energy and Industrial sectors. In the Energy sector, India needs to accelerate its move to renewable sources that are not water dependent. Currently, about 30 bcm are drawn annually, of which 6 bcm are consumed. Clearly, high-cost thermal and hydropower systems cannot be given up in the near term, but they must be upgraded to maximize water use efficiency. Where new plants are being built, the latest technologies must be adopted, and sustainable water linkages established in areas that are either water surplus, or water neutral. It makes little sense to lose 14 terawatt hours of power generation as we did in 2016.
Efficiency of water use in Industry continues to be an issue. Growth in demand is forecast to rise from 10 bcm in 2010, to 23 bcm in 2025, and 63 bcm in 2050. The problem is twofold. Consumption is not premised on efficient use, and wastewater is not treated. Far from being available, after treatment, as new water, industrial effluent contributes to widespread freshwater pollution. India needs to rapidly establish an industrial water standards regulator with prescriptions for consumption per product output.
So, to the question: have we gone past our tipping point? We probably have. Demand is already close to accessible supply. Climate change does not help. A well-known adage is: If climate change is the shark, water is its teeth. Extended and unpredictable dry seasons, together with unseasonal, and extreme precipitation, make water management doubly challenging. In these circumstances, it makes political and economic sense to use our available freshwater efficiently. This is not the time to endlessly debate institutional reforms, or water budgets. It is high time we got Efficient with what we have.
Disclaimer: Statements expressed in this blog reflect the personal opinion of the author and do not represent the position or policy of GBPG or entities we are affiliated with. While we strive to ensure the accuracy of the information presented, we make no guarantees regarding its completeness, reliability, or accuracy.
