Water

Water is life. However it is limited and there is only so much of life that it can support!

We don’t think too much about air other than when we start choking because of too much pollution. We take its availability for granted and consider it as our right, without any obligations to keep it clean! Same is true for water.

There is a lot that is being talked and written about air and air pollution, thanks to Carbon Dioxides effect on rise in temperature. However, there isn’t as much discussion about water. Most of us urban dwellers only face the water reality, when we don’t get running water in our taps. Otherwise we don’t bother. However, some facts related to water situation in India are startling.

In our country we receive 50% of yearly precipitation in 15 days and 90% of rivers flow in 4 months. In last two decades, 84% of total additional net irrigated area came from groundwater and only 16% from canals. Who so ever thought government’s big irrigation projects helped India achieve Green Revolution, time for a reality check. Ground water provides 70% of irrigated area and 80% of domestic water. Tube wells and underground aquifers are providing the temporary respite. Why temporary? Because, ground water is limited in supply. This will run out!

15% aquifers are in critical condition they are already being overdrawn. This will grow to 60% in next 25 years.

Ground water revolution has brought immense benefits for India, playing major role in irrigation, rural development and poverty reduction. However, couple developments will result in increasingly diminishing returns from the underground aquifers

Energy subsidy - Energy subsidy has enabled tapping of the ground water a viable option. However, it has run its course. For various other obvious reasons, this subsidy cannot continue forever. If we are not staring at the scenario of outright stopping of the subsidy, we definitely are getting in an era where the subsidy is not going to be able to keep pace with the ever increasing demand for energy to pump up the water from ever increasing depths!

Sustainability of the resource itself - Recharge of the underground aquifers is put to sever test as the rivers that used to run their course have been dammed and harvested, thus limiting the underground aquifer areas that they used to recharge.

Annual replenishable groundwater resources of India amount to 430 billion cubic meters. Average withdrawal amount to 160 billion cubic meters per year. However, average in this case can be very misleading. e.g. Punjab groundwater in 60% blocks is overdrawn, Haryana and TN are overdrawing in 42% and Rajasthan has gone from 17% to 60% in last 7 years!

Overall country’s 14% blocks are exploited. This is expected to reach 60% in 25 years. By 2050 water demand will increase beyond all available sources of supply.

15% of India’s food grain is produced from non-renewable mined ground water. This water is remnant of the old ice ages, water that stayed underground when the ice melted on the surface. More and more farm land is being added to the mined ground water irrigation category. In the short run, it helps in food production and feeding the people. But remember, we are running downhill towards the cliff with no wings or parachute.

We invested in building the water management infrastructure but did not take it to the next level of management infrastructure, required to keep it operational at optimum efficiency. However, we did not invest at all in public and private participation, incentives, water entitlement, transparency, competition, accountability, financing and environmental quality. Déjà vu! Most public utility infrastructure that government manages has the same story.

User charges for water are negligible. Gap between tariff and value of irrigation and water supply services has fueled endemic corruption. Staffing levels for water management in India are 10 times the international norms.

India’s water management philosophy can be aptly summed up as Build–neglect–rebuild!

Further, climate change is leading to deglaciation. The rainy days are expected to be lesser with substantial increase in extreme precipitation events. Climate change will increase the variability of already highly variable rainfall pattern, requiring greater investment in managing both scarcity and floods. Area affected by flooding is going to increase significantly.

Many regions including many of the most productive agricultural and industrial regions of India, where water scarcity is already a fact of life, will experience chronic water shortage

Deglaciation is going to result in inadvertent mining of water banks of the Himalayas. This will lead to a run off windfall for a few decades, to be followed by major permanent reduction in run off. To address this challenge, large investment in water storage is required. India must harvest the water when it is available and make it available during the lean seasons. e.g river basins like Colorado in the US and Muarry-Darling in Australia can store 900 days of storage capacity, there is only about 30 days of storage capacity in most of India’s river basins

Challenge – Development of a vital and efficient urban water supply and sanitation sector. The sector has no identity, is bankrupt, is not developing the required human resources, focuses primarily on adding infrastructure, not improving the services.

It is the absence of sound incentives which is the fundamental problem facing water management in India. Incentive based approach could involve government allowing other (private players) to compete for the right to supply water and provide irrigation services, while government would focus on flood control, sewage treatment with its central task being the development and improvement of an integrated package of instruments – entitlement, pricing and regulations. This requires employing the model that has successfully been deployed in the telecom sector, albeit with much more sensitivity, as it deals with a very sensitive and emotional topic of water.

The major problems with our water management can be enumerated as follows -

State is dysfunctional. Major problem with water management in India remains the fact that it is an exclusive state subject. State must continue to be a provider however it must not be the only one. Frameworks should be created that allows other players to provide water for various types of usages, stimulating competition in and for the water supply services.

Need to empower the users by giving them clear, enforceable water entitlements. Right now a lot of what is in place is how it has been, mostly historical. However, as is easy to understand, neither is it fair, nor is it sufficient to address the present, and is woefully antiquated to handle what is looming ahead. This is required at all levels, from establishing the owners of the source and their rights, to the contracts between the providers and consumers all the way down to the end consumers

It is essential that a culture of transparency be brought in and veil of secrecy be lifted. Water being such an emotional issue it is essential to build the consensus and get as many people involved in the process as possible.

Introducing incentive based participatory regulation of services and water resources. There are two primary challenges – first to improve the quality and coverage of formal public water supply and irrigation services and second to regulate the use of groundwater. Clear and enforceable titles are a necessity. Also, it is required to break the link between land ownership and the ground water ownership. It no longer would be viable that anyone can take as much one wants from the underground aquifers.

The entire system has to be put on a sound financial footing. This must start with improving the service, winning people’s trust and then working to recover the cost. No one will pay even the cost of a dysfunctional, unreliable water system.

Invest heavily in human resource development. Any system for its success requires capable people to manage it. In present scenario the entire system is overstaffed by 10 times the international norms. However, almost all of this work force, in one form or another, is in execution, the absence of which is legendary. A few capable, well trained, people are required with clearly defined job responsibilities and accountability. A part of the work force need to operate as the think tank that defines policies and procedures keeping in mind the long term perspective.

Ensure local people are the first beneficiaries of the projects. Nothing will succeed, if the people who are impacted the first and visibly are not compensated by the policies or procedures that are put in place.

Make environment a high priority. Environment will only be an important aspect in water management if the vision is long term. Myopic vision leads to suboptimal decisions and erroneous policies.

Rules for reformers

Water is different - There is a lot that can be learned from reforms in telcom, power and transport. However water is different. While the reforms in other areas add to the convenience, changes in water management can have bearing on the people life’s itself.

Initiate reform where there is a powerful need and demonstrated demand for change. Abstract statements like “river basin management” and “integrated water resource management” don’t ring a bell with people in general. However, there are places where the general public will visibly be able to connect with such a talk. e.g in city like Chennai where the drinking water supply to the vast majority of residents is under tremendous stress.

Fiscal constraints, will sooner or later force the cities and states to seriously look at water management and related policies

The market dynamics will ensure that the Industry migrates to areas where there is better availability of water. Better availability can either be because of more water sources in that area or because of better water resources management or better still, both.

Agricultural areas, as the water becomes scarcer, the water use will have to move from low value crops to high value crops.

Involve those affected and address their concern with effective understandable information. People are for good reasons always apprehensive of changes which will be thrust upon them. When it involves something as sensitive as water, communication, discussion and information becomes central element for any reform process.

Implementation is the key. All the talks and policies are not worth the paper they are written on if these are not implemented fast and accurately.

Developing a sequenced prioritized list of reforms is essential with focus on accountability and efficiency. Once the services improve and become reliable, then increase the tariff to bring revenue in line with the cost.

Patience and persistence is a must. The reforms won’t be quick affairs. These would not run for years but decades. Nothing sells like success. Picking the low hanging fruits, where the chances of success are greatest is how it must be prioritized. Start chipping away at the problem one at a time. We won’t get to the promised state in one fell swoop. We must define small measurable steps to get there.

The major instrument is not going to be infrastructure alone, but management supported by old and new types of infrastructure. Management is going to mean systematic set of legislations, capacity adding, organizational changes, and use of entitlement, pricing, and regulatory instruments. And it is not going to be the task of government alone, but concerted and reinforcing actions by a host of stakeholders.

Don’t paint any one way of managing water as evil. Water management models may or may not be relevant based on local situations. However, there is no one method that fits all and neither is there any one model that universally must be discarded.

Reforms must provide returns for the politicians who are willing to make changes. Digvijay Singh summed it up appropriately – “If it must work, water reforms must be good politics”

Having said that, act we must!

Credit where it is due – The facts and stats above have come from the World Bank report – “India’s Water Economy – Bracing for a Turbulent Future” by John Briscoe and RPS Malike