At Independence, only 6% of rural India had access to safe drinking water. That figure has gone up to 82%. The per capita availability of renewable freshwater in the country, however, has fallen drastically over the last 50 years. The water table is rapidly falling with unregulated over-exploitation of groundwater. By 2025, water scarcity in India will be acute. And big dams, mega river-linking projects or privatised water distribution may not help.
With an average annual rainfall of 1,170 mm, India is one of the wettest countries in the world. At one extreme are areas like Cherrapunji, in the north-east, which is drenched each year with 11,000 mm of rainfall, and at the other extreme are places like Jaisalmer, in the west, which receives barely 200 mm of rain. Though the average rainfall is adequate, nearly three-quarters of the rain pours down in less than 120 days, from June to September.
The country gets about 420 million hectare-metres (mham) of precipitation annually, of which 20 mham is contributed by rivers flowing in from neighbouring countries. Net evapo-transpiration losses are nearly 200 mham. About 135 mham is available on the surface and the remaining recharges groundwater.
There is little consensus on the issue of exploitable precipitation. Estimates range from 85 to 105 mham. Even if the lower value of 85 mham is taken into account, domestic consumption is no more than 10 mham. The remaining goes to irrigation. But, with demand outpacing the exploitable potential, the maximum usable water supply of 105 mham will be inadequate to meet the growing demand by 2025.
If per capita water availability is any indication, water stress is only just beginning to show. The annual per capita availability of renewable freshwater in the country has fallen from around 5,277 cubic metres in 1955 to 2,464 cubic metres in 1990. Given the projected increase in population by the year 2025, the per capita availability is likely to drop to below 1,000 cubic metres. If the availability falls below 1,000 cubic metres, the situation is labelled one of water scarcity.
According to Professor Malin Falkenmark of the Swedish International Water Institute, 100 litres a day (36.5 cubic metres a year) is the minimum per capita water requirement for our basic human needs. Agriculture, industry and energy usage is roughly 5-20 times that of human requirements.
Although India is endowed with sufficient water, there are significant variations in the spatial and temporal availability of this resource. Consequently, at any given time, there are areas of both water excess and water stress in the country. There are significant variations in water availability even within a river basin. For instance, the availability of water within the Ganga basin varies from 740 cubic metres in the Yamuna to 3,379 cubic metres in the Gandhak.
Rural water schemes have remained the scourge of planners since Independence. Despite massive resource allocation during the last nine Five-Year Plans, there were as many as 61,747 problem villages in the country towards the end of 1997. Interestingly, the country started out with a figure of 150,000 problem villages in 1972; this rose dramatically to 231,000 in 1980.
According to the latest statistics, about 15,000 habitations in the country were reported to be without any source of potable water; some 200,000 villages were partially covered by drinking water schemes; and 217,000 villages reported problems with the quality of water.
It is difficult to estimate the proportion of population that has access to clean drinking water. At the time of the First Five-Year Plan, 6% of the rural population and some 48% of the urban population had access to safe drinking water. There has been a dramatic increase in coverage, and by 1994-95, as much as 82% of the rural population was covered. According to the Centre for Science and Environment, about 81% of the country’s total population has access to safe water.
Water stress is becoming acute in both urban and rural situations. Not only the quantity but also the quality of water supplied or available is being questioned. At one extreme, water is being wasted in urban areas and by industries; at the other, the rural poor lack access to safe water. According to experts, the usable water resources in several river basins will eventually be exhausted, most surface water will be polluted, and environmental deprivation will be universal. Water scarcity has led to the emergence of the bottled water industry worth over Rs 1,000 crore.
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Major river systems of India
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Though India has attempted to store a sizeable portion of its surface water in large dams, some 1,150 cubic kilometres (out of an annual rainfall of 4,000 cubic kilometres) of its rainwater still runs off into the seas annually in the form of ‘rejected recharge’. Given the emerging water stress conditions, it is clear that this runoff needs to be stored on the surface and/or left to recharge the groundwater by reducing the velocity of the runoff.
The country has begun to take rainwater-harvesting and groundwater recharge seriously at all levels. These are at the heart of its massive Integrated Watershed Development Programme, which provides public resources to local communities to treat watershed catchment areas and to construct rainwater harvesting and recharge structures. Trends during the 1990s also suggest a progressive shift of budgetary allocation from irrigation development to water harvesting and recharge.
Across India, some 6.2 million hectares of rain-fed lands are currently under treatment through 5,200 micro-watersheds, at a whopping cost of Rs 8 billion (for the year 2001-2002). Of the total cultivable area of 142 million hectares, 89 million hectares of non-irrigated land requires similar investments. Not without reason though, as this segment of cultivated area alone contributes a significant 45% of the total foodgrain harvest in the country. With irrigated areas having reached a production plateau of 110 million tonnes, any increase in foodgrain production, from the current level of 200 million tonnes, in the coming decades will have to come from rain-fed agriculture.
Improving the productive use of water is another area that is receiving attention. Punjab, the bread-basket of the country, has taken the lead by encouraging its rice and wheat-growing farmers to switch to water-saving diversified farming. So far, the state is exporting `virtual water’ in the form of water-intensive crops like rice and wheat. It has now developed an incentive system to encourage farmers to switch to other crops along with a suitable buy-back mechanism for the harvest. These are potentially powerful indirect demand-management strategies that do not even form part of academic discourse. However, they offer important trade-offs that need closer scrutiny.
Water stress has led to the revival of domestic rainwater harvesting techniques as well. Himachal Pradesh became the first state in the country to make the installation of rooftop rainwater systems mandatory in all new constructions. Over the years, a number of states and cities have promulgated similar orders. Even Delhi’s Rashtrapati Bhawan has a rooftop rainwater-harvesting system that accounts for the sizeable daily demand, even if it is for ancillary consumption activities such as irrigating gardens and washing floors.
In the emerging situation of water scarcity, the central issue is that of redefining water governance. Unless alternative institutional and policy arrangements are examined, the situation is only going to get worse. In the context of groundwater, the real issue is the formulation of management principles that address the ecological, equity and sustainability concerns. Further, there is a need to identify and strengthen local institutions that ensure equitable and sustainable use of water within ecological confines. Institutional reforms, differential water pricing and water conservation are pivotal issues that need to be addressed in order to tide over the present and emerging situation of water scarcity.
PS: SAVE WATER TO SAVE LIFE
sailesh2000_2000@yahoo.co.uk