The escalating water crisis

The current situation with close to half the country reeling under drought or drought-like conditions, and the number of affected districts rising to 246 across several States is a grim reminder of the escalating water crisis the population faces today. The water scarcity is not a sudden development. Water availability, both in quantity and quality, has been on the decline over the past three-four decades because of gross mismanagement of the available water resources and environmental degradation. Now many parts of India — rural and urban — face a drought-like situation on a recurring basis.
Opening a day-long conference of Environment Ministers from all States on August 18, the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, said: “Climate change is threatening our ecosystems; water scarcity is becoming a way of life and pollution is a growing threat to our health and habitat.” The Prime Minister also expressed concern that rivers all over India were still being degraded and asked everyone to learn to live with ‘new ecological reality’.
ALARMING SITUATION
While the development and equitable distribution of water resources is a global challenge, the situation in India is more precarious since it has a fifth of the world’s population and one twenty-fifth of its water resources.The per capita availability is already low, there is enormous wastage, growing pollution and contamination of surface as well as ground water. Not only is there a growing shortage of irrigation water; even safe drinking water is increasingly scarce. According to the 2001 Census, only 68.2 per cent of households in the country had access to safe drinking water. Experts say, as of now, 50 per cent of the villages have no source of protected drinking water.In a list of 122 countries rated on the quality of potable drinking water, India ranked a lowly 120. And although India has four per cent of the world’s water, studies show that the average availability has been shrinking steadily.
It is estimated that by 2020, India will become an even more water-stressed nation. The World Bank’s State of India Environment reports the per capita drinking water availability in the country has fallen by about 15-20 per cent over the past two decades. It estimates that in the next 25 years, the demand for drinking water in India will double from 25 billion cubic metres currently to 52 billion cubic metres – without much change in availability. GROUND-WATER DEPLETION Around 70 per cent of India’s irrigation needs and 80 per cent of its domestic water supplies come from ground water. A large part of agriculture is dependent on non-renewable ground water. The water table in many States has been falling at an alarming rate. For decades, predominantly agricultural States such as Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan encouraged farmers to dig boreholes (popularly known as tube wells) to get free water for agricultural use. Power for pumping out this water was supplied virtually free or at heavily subsidised rates. This naturally led to over-exploitation of groundwater and widespread environmental damage. Elsewhere in India, too, many farmers resorted to groundwater exploitation for agricultural purposes, thanks to free availability of power but the above four States are the worst affected. To add to the problem, many farmers switched to water-guzzling crops such as paddy from wheat and used water indiscriminately. Not surprisingly, the rate of ground water depletion has raced far past the rate of replenishment in many States. Now comes the most shocking finding. NASA scientists in the US, using satellites to track ground water loss in India’s north-western grain basket, have found that there has been an average 33 cubic km a year drop in the water table in this region, much higher that the Indian government estimates. The satellite study has revealed a loss of 109 cubic km of groundwater in Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan over the six-year period between August 2002 and October 2008, twice the capacity of India’s largest surface water reservoir – the Upper Wainganga in Madhya Pradesh.This rate of groundwater depletion suggests that the region may, within the next few years, experience a severe shortage of potable water, reduced agricultural productivity, and extended socio-economic stress, the US-based research team has warned.
WATER POLLUTION

The crisis has been further aggravated by large-scale pollution of surface and ground water. Almost 70 per cent of surface water resources have serious pollution problems and a significant proportion of ground water resources have been contaminated by chemical substances and pollutants. The deterioration in water quality is more apparent in and around large urban areas where inadequately treated effluents trickle into water sources.
Domestic waste is also one of the major pollution sources. Also, the rapid increase in the use of agro-chemicals and pesticides has been contaminating water supplies through surface run-off or underground leaching. WATER MANAGEMENT
Unfortunately, water management remains a completely neglected area in our country. The current crisis could have been avoided with well-planned and better water management practices instead of treating water as an unlimited free gift of Nature. Over the years, there has been a distinct lack of attention to water legislation, water conservation, efficiency in water use, water recycling and infrastructure. Fortunately, India gets fairly good rainfall at about 46 inches per annum. But almost 50 per cent of it falls within a span of 15 days and 90 per cent of the rain-water run-off occurs in just four months. Only about 15 per cent of the annual rain water is used for irrigation. If this water is properly stored and used for sustained surface irrigation, it could help solve the country’s future agriculture problems and also reduce excessive pressure on ground water. According to reports, the Planning Commission has prepared a draft report for an integrated water management policy aimed at easing scarcity for irrigation, industrial, municipal and drinking purposes. It suggests setting up a regulator to allocate and price water for farmers, improve data collection, and mandate the recharge of water through check-dams, ponds, etc.
The government should finalise the proposals and implement the same on a war footing. It should also make all out efforts to involve the State Governments, district authorities, village panchayats, non-governmental organisations and local populations to ensure that water harvesting, water conservation and efficient water use are accorded top priority.
The Business Line, 29th August 2009