India on brink of 'worst water crisis'

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India on brink of 'worst water crisis'

India is facing its worst-ever water crisis, with some 600 million people facing acute water shortage, a government think-tank says.

The Niti Aayog report, which draws on data from 24 of India's 29 states, says the crisis is "only going to get worse" in the years ahead.

It also warns that 21 cities are likely to run out of groundwater by 2020 despite increasing demand.

This would also threaten food security as 80% of water is used in agriculture.

Indian cities and towns regularly run out water in the summer because they lack the infrastructure to deliver piped water to every home.

Rural areas are also badly affected by a lack of access to clean water. They cannot rely on groundwater due to erratic rains and the fact that the groundwater is increasingly used for farming when monsoon rains are delayed or insufficient.

Around 200,000 Indians die every year because they have no access to clean water, according to the report.

Many end up relying on private water suppliers or tankers paid for the by the government. Winding queues of people waiting to collect water from tankers or public taps is a common sight in Indian slums.

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5 Comments

  1. The Index rightly indentifies the issues with water data in the country and should be lauded for the same. However, at the core of the water crisis is the disruption of the normal functioning of the hydrological cycle of the country and the need for restoring this cycle. The index has failed to identify this critical issue.

    Although the index is targeted at instilling a sense of competitiveness in states for better water use and management outcomes by incentivizing such outcomes, the index doesn’t mention what these incentives are/will be and if they will be tangible. In the absence of tangible incentives for better performances, how can one expect the states to improve water management practices when we see the state of things as of now?

    Irrigation potential statistics provided at the time of project approval doesn’t hold good for long. It does not help in measuring the actual irrigation achieved. It will be better to compare the net irrigated area with the gross irrigated area to incentivize further improvement.

    One of the indicators asks the states whether any regulatory framework for groundwater has been passed. This is a simple yes or no question. It will not yield any information on the implementation of such acts. Such questions need to be reframed.

    Creating new projects for filling up the gap between IPC and IPU will not be helpful as stated above. It would be better to find out why this gap exists in the first place.

    Farmer Producer Societies with 30-50 hectare land area should be encouraged to reduce input costs, increase mechanization, expand area under micro-irrigation, and improve water-use efficiency. 

    To improve water use efficiency in irrigated agriculture, the distribution to farmers from canals should be modified and integrated with groundwater. Moreover, existing structures should be maintained properly.

    A possible incentive for states is increased allotment of funds for O&M of irrigation assets. These funds should be provided in the form of reimbursement to the states after the selected works have been completed.

    Incentives can also be provided in cases where there has been an increase in area cultivated after adoption of cropping patterns suited to agro-climatic zones.

    The spread of micro-irrigation should also be incentivized by allocation of more funds for the same. Again, the allocation of funds should be in the form of reimbursement after a stated target for a particular FY has been achieved.

    Subsidies for micro-irrigation and other farm equipment should be provided to the farmer societies and not to the manufacturers of such equipment. Similarly, subsidies provided on electricity and water should be withdrawn to avoid over-use and wastage of water.

    Desalinization has now become cheaper with improved technology and desalinized water is now being used by the heavy industries in coastal areas. It would help in reducing the use of groundwater. This should be added to the water availability statistics.

    The focus of NITI aayog should be on the following:

    The regulation of water and land resources based on primary requirements of domestic use and food security for the year 2050 when the population is expected to reach 1600 million.

    The regulation of resources for livelihood security for which the key sectors are services, industry, and agriculture.  

  2. The water related situation in many regions of this world, where the demand for freshwater is continuously growing, and where limited water resources are increasingly stressed by over-abstraction, pollution and climate change, urges to identify and apply beside the conventional sources for potable water procurement alternative sustainable remedies. These solutions could include e. g.: a) the reasonable and well controlled use of potable water in order to avoid wasting water, b) reuse / recycle water after treatment / purification of  wastewater, and c) production of potable water by desalination of seawater or brackish water, or e.g.  treatment of contaminated surface water. For the majority of these solutions the most successful, resilient and resource efficient applications can be based on membrane technology, if the related plants are designed, manufactured and operated adequately. This includes also the opportunities arising from improved wastewater management with focus on the purification of sewage treatment plant effluents that is increasingly suggested and accepted.

    As drought conditions and water pollution crises multiply, water is no longer viewed as a free commodity in processing environments. This in mind it is retraceable that the United Nations World Water Development Report 2017 entitled “Wastewater: The Untapped Resource” addresses the opportunities arising from improved wastewater management that includes the purification of effluents of sewage treatment plants. Thereby it can be assumed, that in the future water reuse will play a more significant role than it is supposed actually. The interactions between increasing water demand, progressive application of resource efficient water treatment processes based on membrane technology and increasing acceptance of purified wastewater will be the driving forces.  

    One important option for India in coastal areas is the production of potable water by desalination of seawater, like in Chennai, where the undersigned has been deeply involved at his time in the tender and offer evaluation phase for the seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO) desalination plant 1. But in comparison to the related plant design that has been based on frame conditions considered to be up to date at that time, today further improvements addressing costs, reliability, sustainability  and environmental aspects can be obtained if modern state of the art systems are used, e. g. for seawater intake and partial pre-treatment (sub-seabed units according the well proven Neodren technology) and for remineralisation of the permeate according newest developments.    

    1 Comment reply

    1. Desalination of sea water is undoubtedly a very expensive and energy-intensive proposal under today's aggregate situation. It would be nice to know what is the maintenance situation of the Chennai plant, particularly in view of the fact that around 90% of the WTPs/STPs are non functional in the country or only having primary treatment under working condition. Despite the newer technologies, these infrastructures are very expensive and energy-intensive also.

  3. Actually previous governments didn't pay attention to regulate the domestic & industrial discharges that has created contamination of  natural water resources. Ganga cleaning project started many years before but in Congress governance only money has been wasted in meetings & making strategies nothing has been started on ground. No efforts have been made to store the rain water otherwise many states are having floods in rainy season.

    Our Ex-PM Shri Atal Bihari Bajpai has thought of linking of rivers but nothing has been started yet. Our country doesn't need Bullet train instead BJP government should think about the dream of Bajpaiji.

    1 Comment reply

    1. Neither Ganga cleaning nor River linking is viable proposals in the today's developmental boom and competition for economic aspirations. River linking was suggested by M. N. Dastoor way back in 1945, and later on emphasized by K. L. Rao, when the lands were relatively less developed. Now, the River Linking will require lifting of water at many places and displacement of affected population, rehabilitation of them, removal of trees, .....and many other impacts. 

  4. @ 'India on brink of worst water crisis'.

    Water crisis in India is not a new thing. Many reports in the past also pointed out this. The question remains what has been done so far by the governance. Neither hi-fi expensive infrastructure development nor rainwater harvesting have the potential to bridge the water demand-supply gap. For a practical solution to the water crisis problem in reality, the mental attitude and behavior of all stakeholders in water use and consumption need to be changed.

    All countries are confronted with water scarcity of varying types. The daunting biggest challenge for the authorities is in protecting groundwater from depletion and pollution, and making sound managing decisions on complex issues/activities that may affect water supply at local and basin scale. For short-term situation management when water supplies are affected, the managers usually adopt approaches, which involve eliminating immediate, unacceptable impacts on human and the environment, groundwater-use restrictions, regulation, balancing time and resources. However, these may require more research, time, regulations, funding, technology, etc., and as well as may be expensive/complex.

     

    In this context, I have pleasure to inform you that with my over four decades of experience and extensive field investigations on hydrological studies on groundwater covering fourteen river basins in India, I have authored a book 'BETTER GROUNDWATER GOVERNANCE ONLY CAN ENSURE SUSTAINED WATER SUPPLY', published by Lambert Academic Publishing, Germany. 

     

    This book identifies the issues that affect water supply; and makes scientific endeavors to improve all stakeholders’ awareness and understanding of real groundwater problems, and suggests governance approaches by relevant policies, with strong peoples’ participation efforts by behavioral change. In addition to need for better governance of groundwater, the book also discuses in detail and also highlights groundwater geo-ethical issues and dimensions in practical reality and the need of change in mental attitude and behavior in all the stakeholders. The analysis may be especially useful to professionals, academics, researchers, students in water governance and communication for implementing groundwater resources protection strategies, and long-term solutions to ensure sustained water supply for public benefit.

    It would be worthwhile to keep a few copies of the book in the library of your organizations, institutes, and agencies, or in your personal library.The price of the book is set at 32.90 Euro/copy. You may find the book available on the publisher’s general partner bookstore on the link given below:

    https://www.morebooks.de/store/gb/book/better-groundwater-governance-only-can-ensure-sustained-water-supply/isbn/978-3-330-32219-6

    Prof. Partha Sarathi Datta (M.Sc., Ph. D., IIT Kanpur)

    Experienced Adviser and Consultant on Water and Environment; Vice-President (IAPG-INDIA)

    (Former Director, NRL, IARI), New Delhi, India

    Author of 'BETTER GROUNDWATER GOVERNANCE ONLY CAN ENSURE SUSTAINED WATER SUPPLY', LAP Lambert Academic Publishing, ISBN-13: 978-3-330-32219-6.

    Available on Website: https://www.lap-publishing.com/catalog/details//store/gb/book/978-3-330-32219-6/better-groundwater-governance-only-can-ensure-sustained-water-supply

  5. Hi. I have developed a grey water recovery system for apartments , townships for secondary utilization, irrigation needs and ground water recharging . We are also developed  a chemical free solar driven innovative solution for drinking water solution with 95% water recovery  without using any grid power. This system can deliver iron ,arsenic and pathogen free drinking water to replace high rejection RO system were our natural resources and wasted .

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