Pondering if the ‘Glass is Empty’
“Pure water is the world’s first and foremost medicine.”
Slovakian Proverb.
India has an intense relationship with water — our life metaphors are modelled on attributes of water; our films celebrate every romantic and dramatic aspect of the rains; our history is irrevocably tied tightly with our innumerable rivers and water bodies; their significance unchallenged. Fortunes and elections are made or lost on having them clean and on promises to restore their lost glory and reverence.
However, what brings our vast population joy and prosperity, is simultaneously a medium of doom and misfortune, when it’s missing. And unfortunately, its been missing for a while, if you haven’t noticed.
What is most surprising is that India has been tied to the hip with an omnipresent, yet almost invisible water challenge. We have discussed about the lack of universal clean water to drink, the lack of adequate water sources to irrigate our farms, the incessant water wars between state boundaries and have had perennial conversation on water wastages. And this has been a conversation since I was a teenager in the 1990s — across both informal and formal channels
The confoundedness is exacerbated, when you witness a union government election can be contested on cleaning a relatively small section of the Ganges, but the lack of clean drinking water for 48% (2020 — JPC report) of the Indian population is not even an issue on the state or national spectrum?
Incidentally, the first National Water Policy enacted in India was 1987 and which proved to the world that we were serious about managing our resources and providing access. Though, between that period and the last national policy in 2012 — the situation has only grown more severe and our efforts have been completely squandered on a plethora of man-made issues to make things worse.
One of the biggest challenges that Indians face today is one of access to water and eventually ensuring it being safe and clean. With a population of ~1.4 billion — we have thousands and lacs of death due to unclean water and its associated diseases and health outcomes. An excerpt from the fantastic commentary on water issues by James Temple “Pipe Dreams” sets the context:
More than 600 million Indians face “acute water shortages,” according to a report last summer by NITI Aayog, a prominent government think tank. Seventy percent of the nation’s water supply is contaminated, causing an estimated 200,000 deaths a year. Some 21 cities could run out of groundwater as early as next year, including Bangalore and New Delhi, the report found. Forty percent of the population, or more than 500 million people, will have “no access to drinking water” by 2030.
From access to basic water resources, to the price of cleansing toxic water, to making it available for the wider population in a sustainable way — the paper outlines the challenges and the complexities of understanding that one size fit all solutions create more issues than their proposed benefits. I would recommend you to read it immediately, if water features as an issue on your mind.
The write-up is an eye-opening account of our water challenges and the complexity in fixing them.
James Temple is MIT Technology Review’s senior energy editor.
The biggest take away for me from that feature is that we must curb our enthusiasm for central government interventions as a fix all to key water issues. It’s true that the central government and focused ministries, Niti Aayog could be important enablers for our vision and direction — but solving for water has to be a bespoke model, where the state governments and various municipal bodies play an immensely critical and non-fungible role in abetting the water crisis in India. Additionally, this is an area — where an active civil society, that takes water usage, wastage and pollution more seriously, could be the catalyst for rapid action.
Interestingly, for all the crisis conversations we have had over the years, it’s a revelation to understand that India actually has sufficiency in water inflows — if we measure the daily inflow of water into India, through Himalayas and the rains — we might just be water adequate to sustain our population and it’s need. Which indicates that the issue is one of management, then just being scarcity. Obviously, there is scarcity in pockets and we should understand that the potential efficient sharing and distribution of resources could address them. Another factor that translates itself as scarcity is our depleting ground water resources and one of the key drivers is the unchecked proliferation of private borewells across the country over the last five decades.
It’s interesting to study the borewell explosion in India, in context of borewells being a policy and strategic intervention to solve the issue of water transportation by state and the central government. However, without the adequate checks and balances within this ecosystem — private borewells have drained most of the common pool of underground water. Triggering a race to dig deeper and severely impact the water tables across multiple agricultural ecosystems, thereby creating an irreversible issue impacting future generations.
Karnataka was one of the first states in India, where borewells were used experimentally to draw water from the hard deccan rocks in the 1970s. Once the borewells yielded miracle water for the water scarce farmers, their incentives to dig within their plot went up. This slow yet continuous progression has now resulted in approximately 40 lakh borewells to be dug within Karnataka in the last 50 years — mostly private. Plummeting the depths of these borewells from its original 40–60 meters to dangerous levels of anywhere between 300–500 meters. And across India — this trend is omnipresent and is encroaching into every possible source of water, draining them dry.
A report suggests that due to excessive drilling of borewells, around 68% of the country is affected by drought now. Potentially translating into one of the reasons that may have led to the declining GDP contribution of the agricultural sector over decades. However, the country and various governments haven’t been able to take up recharging of these borewells and water sources on a war footing — it has been slow in even implementing a universal water harvesting program for the situation to be managed.
The agriculture sector’s usage of water is a hyper critical need given ~60% of our population have quasi dependence on the sector; however, the same sources and distribution width are critical to enable us clean water for domestic consumption. Supply for agricultural purposes is actually the simpler problem to solve, as piped drinking water might need a standardised filtration system to be put in between the supply and last mile delivery. However, if we aren’t able to address the supply, distribution and consistency of water supply to agriculture; our odds at doing the other seem extremely high.
This condition begs us to evaluate the policy decisions and directions that have been laid out since the last 30 years. Though most of them outlined the importance and altruistic models of providing every citizen with clean drinking water, almost all of them didn’t have a timed plan and hard quantifiable goals articulated for the overall population ands it varied uses, except in the recently formulated Jal Shakti Ministry. An excerpt from the release note on the mission:
“Inspired by the Hon’ble Prime Minister’s impetus on Jal Sanchay, the Jal Shakti Abhiyan (JSA) is a time-bound, mission-mode water conservation campaign. The JSA will run in two Phases: Phase 1 from 1st July to 15th September 2019 for all States and Union Territories; and Phase 2 from 1st October to 30th November 2019 for States and UTs receiving the retreating monsoon (Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Puducherry and Tamil Nadu). During the campaign, officers, groundwater experts and scientists from the Government of India will work together with state and district officials in India’s most water-stressed districts* for water conservation and water resource management by focusing on accelerated implementation of five target intervention. The JSA aims at making water conservation a Jan Andolan through asset creation and extensive communication.”
*Water-stressed districts: Districts with critical or over-exploited groundwater levels as per the Central Ground Water Board (CGWB) 2017. For states without critical and over-exploited groundwater levels, districts with the least availability of groundwater in comparison to the rest of the districts in the state have been selected.
https://ejalshakti.gov.in/JSA/JSA/Home.aspx
So, in principle, this is an important step at identifying the issue at hand and trying to address the actual problems at the spots that face the highest degree of the challenge. The Jal shakti mission purports to intervene in the following five areas
· Water conservation and rainwater harvesting
· Renovation of traditional and other water bodies/tanks
· Reuse and recharge structures
· Watershed development
· Intensive afforestation
The plan also outlines special intervention areas that include a block and district level water conversation plan, organising farmer melas for water adjusted crop selection, better wastewater management at urban centres, mobilising scientists and institutes like the IIT to catalyse solutions and finally mapping village contours in 3D maps which might yield in timely interventions and pinpointed solutions. These steps are far more granular than any of the plans outlined before and on paper have a good chance of helping get the narrative on course, for our administration to start appreciating the issue and acting in the interest of solving for them.
However, the proof remains in the pudding — the coordination between central measures and state execution has always been held hostage to political pressures and surface issues that take precedence over long-term systemic changes. Addressing the supply and distribution of water in India is always going to be a long drawn systemic change that includes a phase of ‘invisible impact’, while in the midst of plotting out the network, establishing partnerships, creating the supply, filtering, distribution and measurement infrastructure. The real outcomes would show much beyond our political timelines of 5-year governments and therefore could be continuously challenged by short-term visible programmes that yield votes and mind space.
As we go deep on making our sources cleaner and restoring ground water levels — how do we attain the goal of clean drinking water for all? The next question to ask is that can this infrastructure of water be provided at the price it currently is? Can various sources be safeguarded, piped water ecosystems created and a good filtration system enabled by pricing it at the current standards?
A sizeable fraction of the cost to draw, cleanse and distribute is managed by state or the formal/informal private sector. This cost of providing the infrastructure will substantially increase if the challenges of clean water need to be addressed. Currently water is subsidised and, in some areas, — deemed free for the public. Another key aspect is the fact that water is eventually a limited resource and is currently not being utilised in a way that is sustainable. Furthermore, from multiple examples of public distribution systems — Free resources are known to be spent un-judicially. Pushing a man-made scarcity on various sections of the population and pushing the distribution into the hands of nexus players, when there is a severe shortage or unplanned urban development, resulting in high variance in quality and pricing.
Both points above, highlight that ‘Free Water’ or the idea of keeping prices artificially low by the state will only exacerbate the future of access to water — both for drinking and agriculture. From a drinking water perspective, free or highly subsided water, pulls away all incentives for research & technological development. Across multiple countries and communities, technical interventions like polymers, membranes are being used to cleanse water at a fraction of the cost compared to legacy infrastructure and practices — The Israel example of extensive technocratic (apolitical) future planning and no subsidy model enables the best of the market forces (environmental conservation model through the EKC) is a great example to follow in this respect.
Additionally, state management of free resources is always marred in inefficiency, which is compounded in India due to the size and scale of the nation. Giving rise to more issues in access and purportedly even more unclean and inconsistent supply of water — as the state will have to spend on the bandwidth to regulate, check and distribute natural water resources continuously, which is prone to severe leakages.
The nation state’s responsibility is to make the market environment robust enough to secure the end goal/outcome, but any intervention in pricing will have more unintended negative impacts
Therefore, the genesis of our future should start at the point of defining our water philosophy. Are we prepared to invest the next nine years (2030) in creating a hub/spoke model, robust water management infrastructure network, unite political will to provide every Indian access to clean water?
We might have a policy directive to finally argue for better water management. But what’s our commitment to tackle this at the ground level? What’s the extent of the budget outlay that States are willing to invest long term in addressing this situation? How will we acquire and utilise the expertise needed to do this herculean task?
To start with, the state’s responsibility is to create the macro infrastructure to safeguard, maintain and replenish natural resources of drinking water (rivers, lakes and natural springs). To make sure that inefficiencies in distribution are adequately solved by inviting entrepreneurs to solve for them and making sure that large scale nation building exercises in connecting water sources be done through state funds.
Technological interventions should be incentivised. (Membrane technology to clean water, better irrigation for farms lands, rainwater harvesting companies, etc.)
Water should be available at the cost of its delivery and the consumer / citizen should pay for it.
The efficiencies within the system will lower the price and make it market adjusted — as water has been a critical commodity and though there is differentiation built in by some producers, the basic need for water is quite undifferentiated.
In the case of water mafias — the state has to intervene and put in regulations/laws to penalise malpractices. Unsustainable groundwater extraction, hoarding natural resources or artificially creating a scarcity should be heavily penalised as per law and society. The same goes for industrial units exploiting or polluting natural resources.
It’s important that we hear about Odisha’s latest tryst with providing free clean water to the entire city of Puri. It gives us perspective into how a strong will to change things could yield into quick progress and a responsible system to ensure it. However, a word of caution on hypothecating this model on the vast rural and semi-urban population in India — it’s not going to be a one-size fit all system. An excerpt below:
Recently, Puri in Odisha became the first Indian city to provide 24×7 safe drinking water from taps for residents in July this year (2021). It’s indeed a laudable effort for a city, which is also a major tourist hotspot, to provide clean water to nearly two crore people annually. The city has installed water fountains to eliminate the use of plastic water bottles and reduce 400 metric tons of plastic waste.
Puri may have taken the lead in 24×7 supply of quality tap water, but the road to achieve 100% target for every household in India is no cakewalk. In addition to providing potable tap water connection in rural India under the government’s flagship ‘Har Ghar Nal Se Jal’ scheme, factors like steady water supply and quality checks, testing and contamination-free water at local level are a concern, as also a real-time surveillance system to track and log consumer complaints, remove overhead water tanks, pumps and RO-based water filters — the efforts to achieve a seamless supply are far and wide.
“What Puri has achieved is commendable and can certainly be done across India with proper planning. However, some challenges remain like legacy water pipelines with leakages, undetected mixing of water supply with sewerage and uncertainty in source water availability all through the year,” says Dr Sunderrajan Krishnan, executive director, India Natural Resource Economics and Management (INREM) Foundation, a research institution probing societal issues concerning water, public health, agriculture and the environment.
Even though the efforts of the city are laudable, experts also feel the focus should not be to achieve the coverage but sustain the gains in the long run. “All this can be achieved through efficient service delivery benchmarks with adequate operation and maintenance of created infrastructure,” says Anshuman, associate director, water resources, The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), New Delhi. TERI is a not-for-profit, policy research organisation working in the fields of energy, environment, and sustainable development.
Water-borne diseases due to water contamination were a never-ending issue in the state but authorities have now ensured 24×7 supply of regular network, quality control at tap connection and stressed on quality checking of surface and groundwater. “Because water is not a commodity, it’s a public good, so, quality drinking water is closely linked with human health, human development index and economy,” says G Mathi Vathanan, principal secretary, housing and urban development department, Odisha, who spoke with Sunday FE and explained how the step-by-step process of the ‘drink-from-tap’ project started in 2017 when Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik launched a mission called ‘SUJAL’ for universal coverage of tap water in every household.
Clean water should be a people’s right, making it free might ensure we don’t have it.
