How real is the crisis?

Some of the crucial issues faced by the water sector in India include

1. Poor Administrative Management: Decreasing water quality due to poor waste management laws, growing financial crunch for development of resources and scarcity of safe drinking water. Inadequate institutional reforms and ineffective implementation of existing provisions affect the performance level for water service delivery.
2. Inter-state river disputes: Several inter-state river-water disputes have erupted since independence in the backdrop of unsustainable development and increasing population. Water disputes abound within the country and among its neighbors. Despite of explicit constitutional provisions that govern inter-state water disputes, it is unclear whether existing mechanisms for adjudicating interstate water disputes are efficient. Under Inter-State water disputes Act, 1956, numerous tribunals have been set up. Some of the important disputes and Tribunals worth mentioning are:
   1. The Krishna-Godavari water dispute among Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh (AP), Madhya Pradesh (MP), and Orissa
   2. The Mahadayi Water Tribunalpronounced its final verdict in August 2018 and permitted Karnataka state to use water outside the basin for drinking water use.
   3. The Cauvery Water dispute: In the recent years, the Cauvery water dispute has escalated to become a fight over potable drinking water between the two mega cities Bengaluru and Chennai, both facing the worst water crisis in the country. Cauvery water Tribunal was dissolved in 2018 after the disputes among the four riparian states – Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and reached finality. Cauvery delta is one of the oldest and largest in the country and supplies drinking water to 20% of the total population of Tamil Nadu.

Water disputes have a potential impact on the overall economy, socio-cultural fabric, political stability, and security of not only the regions in which they occur, but also affect the entire country. However, the current solutions treat only the symptoms and not the root cause of the problem. Inter-State water Disputes Amendment Bill, 2017 has been introduced to speed up the dispute resolution process. As per the bill, Single Permanent Tribunal is to be set up which will have multiple benches.

      3. Pollution: The quality of drinking-water is a powerful environmental determinant of health. Water pollution has reached an alarming level in India and has contributed to water scarcity by polluting freshwater resources, thereby limiting options.

River Pollution: Despite Namami Gane, water quality of Ganga continues to worsen. The waters of the Yamuna, Ganga and Sabarmati flow the dirtiest with a deadly mix of pollutants both hazardous and organic. India’s rivers have high fluoride content and are also contaminated by antibiotics, beyond the permissible limit of 1.5 ppm, which affects 66 million people nationwide. The Ganga river basin that covers 26.3% of India’s Geographic area cannot be used for any purpose, including drinking, cooking or bathing. As per the World Water Development Report, 2019, it has been revealed that coliform bacteria and biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) have increased significantly in the Ganga river Because the rivers are too polluted to drink and the government is unable to deliver freshwater, many urban dwellers are turning to groundwater, leading to its rapid depletion.

Groundwater (GW) Pollution: India is the largest consumer of GW in the world. As per the Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation (DDWS) nearly 90% of the rural water supply is from GW sources. However, high levels of Arsenic and Fluoride are found in the states of UP where around 78% of population lives in rural areas and are dependent on GW for drinking, cooking and irrigation. Government data revealed that over 45 million are affected with groundwater contaminated with fluoride, arsenic, iron, salinity, nitrate and heavy metal. The World Water Development Report has revealed that India extracts almost one fourth of total groundwater extracted globally

Apart from rivers and ground water, many other water sources are contaminated with both bio and chemical pollutants, and over 21% of the country's diseases are water-related. Recently, in February 2019, a report from International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) stressed that India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and China together account for more than 50% of the world’s groundwater withdrawals.

   4. Inter-sectoral conflicts: Reliability on water to cool the power plants is one of the largest sources of water withdrawals. Water demand in both Agriculture and Power sector is set to increase tremendously in the coming years.

   5. Inefficiency and lack of infrastructure: Water storage infrastructure in India remains one of the lowest in the world. There is also a marked absence of adequate number of well-equipped and functioning sewage treatment plants

   6. Climate-Change: Erratic distribution of rainfall, often leading to floods and drought impact drinking water supply. Future predictions include worsening of the situation due to a disturbed hydrological cycle and regional climatic variability.

   7.Lack of local Community Participation:  Policies and systems are designed and constructed with little participation from local communities.

For the drinking water to be of greatest purity, every government enforces standards which classify certain qualities of water as usable and the others as non usable. Indian government has recognized these standard guidelines and put them as a part of legal framework. (Indian Standard Drinking Water Specification (BIS 10500: 1991).  UNICEF is also supporting GOI programs on arsenic and fluoride mitigation. National Water Policy also clearly establishes that provision to provide adequate and assured safe drinking water is of utmost priority in the country.

• New ‘Jal Shakti’ Ministry: The new ministry formed by merging the Ministry of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation and Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation has promised to ensure potable, piped drinking water to every home by 2024. This move aims at improving India’s structural water crisis that requires sustainable long term policies. As water is a State subject, providing water for drinking is the responsibility of the state.
• River Inter-linking program: A brainchild of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, government in its 2019 election manifesto promised to ensure a long term solution to the problems of drinking water and irrigation. However, environmentalists are concerned over its impacts such as massive displacement of people, expensive affair, and affect the entire ecosystem of the surrounding area.
• Increased Community Participation: World Bank-supported projects have shown that communities are indeed capable of managing their water supply services, if some facilitation is done by local governments. Some of the success stories of states on water management are worth mentioning:

1. Mission Kakatiya (Telangana): The mission entails the comprehensive revival of over 40,000 tanks in the State which has led to visible improvements in groundwater levels. It has become a major success despite lack of central funds and becomes a global attention.
2. Jalanidhi (Kerala) provided a dependable supply of piped water to 192,000 rural homes in 13 districts
3. Swajal (Uttarakhand): Over 8,000 habitations built their own water supply systems. Thus, strong community involvement reduced the cost of systems, rural homes received 24/7 water supply through gravity-based piped systems
4. Jal Swarajya (Maharashtra) has brought clean drinking water into 1.2 million homes, more than half of whom were below the poverty line.
5. Jal Nirmal (Karnataka): By decentralizing services to rural communities, the Karnataka Jal Nirmal project(2002-2013) improved water supply for about 7 million rural inhabitants in 11 districts of Northern Karnataka.

Waterman of India

Ramon Magsaysay awardee Rajinder Singh is a well known water conservationist and environmentalist. He is credited with harvesting rain water for drinking and domestic purposes by building check dams in Alwar and nearby districts of Rajasthan. The idea was to revive the use of traditional technology of Johad, an ancient water conservation technique to replenish the water sources. Johad is a concave structure that collects and stores water throughout the year for drinking purposes by humans and cattle. It is the successful implementation of this ancient innovation that earned him the name 'Jal Purush' or the 'Waterman of Rajasthan'. The sincere efforts of ‘Waterman’ for eradicating drinking water scarcity in the rural areas of Rajasthan inspired many NGOs within the country and abroad. The transformation was visible and long term. Now, women need not walk for miles to fetch water, neither do men have to leave their homes for work, as the land under cultivation in villages have increased manifold and farm incomes have been on a rise. He also played an instrumental role in revitalization of five rivers that had gone dry for long time.

Bunker Roy – A mix of Technology and Tradition

Bunker Roy is an Indian social activist and educator who founded the Barefoot College. It is based in Tilonia, which is a small village in Rajasthan. What makes this college unique is that it believes in identifying and using skills, knowledge and practical experience of ordinary people in the community itself to provide for basic needs such as drinking water. The College takes men, women and children who are illiterate and semi-literate from the lowest castes, and from the most remote and inaccessible villages in India, and trains them at their own pace to become “barefoot” water and solar engineers.

A hundred year old traditional method to collect rain water through roofs with low cost materials came to the rescue. Economically it is cheaper and the village committee could be empowered to control and distribute the water without being dependent on the outside for any technical, human and financial resource. The college confidently rejects the outside professionals and does not believe in technology that deprives people of their jobs, increases dependency and leads to exploitation.  They believe that the mindset of the technological engineers is that problems of water shortage and drinkability can only be solved if expensive and deep well drilling rigs exploit the ground water or pump water from a permanent water source through pipes. However, people of the Tilonia village rejected the idea and instead resorted to simpler cost effective solutions. The college’s staggering achievements include regular piped water supply systems to atleast 10 villages around Tilonia designed and implemented entirely by the local people.

Ralegan Siddhi - A Case Study

Raleghan Siddhi is in a drought-prone and rain-shadowed area of India which faced a severe water crisis that resulted in people having to struggle to find drinking water during part of the year. IN 1975, Anna Hazare who had once lived in the village, returned, determined to improve the situation of the country. He began to involve the community and especially the youth. In order to bring back water, he undertook projects with the villagers to construct nalla bunds, install boreholes and hand-pumps to provide drinking water. The village does not any longer have to worry about having drinking water year round, and the woman no longer have to walk long distances to fetch water.

• Addressing issues of river contamination and sewage treatment would require a decentralized approach by bringing in Local governments, NGOs, private bodies and most importantly citizens’ participation. Unless the citizens do not realize a sense of ownership and responsibility to jointly safeguard water quality, addressing problems of drinking water and water induced diseases would be impossible. Government needs to put in sustained efforts for creating public awareness and vigilance, building consensus about unfair practices and evoking relevant stringent rules, laws and framework around water safety.
• The impact of climate change is significantly larger for the water sector. Therefore newer strategies have to be evolved to achieve a sustainable trajectory of growth and development.
• Privatisation of water: private sector efficiency can be harnessed with structures ensuring accountability, leading to sustainable development. The involvement of the private operator, who will bring in the investment, would ensure long-term commitment to the cause.
• India should note the efforts of countries like Israel and Singapore for sustainable water consumption in their implementation of drip irrigation and desalination plants.
• Encouraging adoption of traditional water conservation methods such as Ahar Pyne and Khadin and knowledge of traditional herbs as water purifying agents along with increased participation of local communities and devolution of power.
• Practices such as Rain water harvesting, Micro irrigation methods such as drip and sprinklers need to be easily accessible at a subsidized rate for the farmers to ease the burden on drinking water sources. Economic Survey of 2018 noted that “Technologies of drip irrigation, sprinklers, and water management—captured in the “more crop per drop” campaign—may well hold the key to future Indian agriculture (Shah Committee Report, 2016; Gulati, 2005) and hence should be accorded greater priority in resource allocation.”

1. Some of the country’s major urban conglomerates are reeling with massive water crisis. Do you agree? How far do you think that the reasons for drinking water shortage in the country are more of political nature than environmental nature? Justify your stand with examples. Also evaluate key areas of improvement in your opinion with a way forward.
2. India uses one-fourth of groundwater extracted globally. In the light of the UN report, analyse the reasons for the unprecedented extraction of groundwater in India and its immediate and long term impact. Critically examine the role that government and non-governmental organisations have played in dealing with the water crisis in the country. Give relevant examples / case studies.
3. Most of the freshwater sources in India are polluted and therefore unfit for drinking purposes. Critically examine the different sources of water and their distribution in the country. How far have inter-state disputes and Namami Gange Program helped in solving the water crisis for states? What other steps (Government and Private) have been taken to improve the present water shortage situation.
4. How critical is the present situation of water crisis in India? Justify your stand with relevant data. How far can traditional methods prove helpful in dealing with this crisis? Evaluate the success of non-governmental efforts in dealing with the issue. Also suggest strategies and sustainable solutions to combat with the situation.
5. There has been no permanent solution to drinking water crisis in India. Do you agree? How far can environmental issues and erratic monsoon be blamed for the water shortage problems. Can privatisation of water be a sustainable solution for ending the water scarcity in the country? Give reasons for your answer.