Mumbai: A major fresh water crisis is gradually unfolding in India. The crisis is the lack of access to safe water supply to millions of people as a result of inadequate water management and environmental degradation.

The crisis endangers the economic and social prosperity of the country. But it seems that the worse is yet to come. The latest report by the Planning Commission, funded by the United Nations Children's Fund and World Health Organisation, reveals that India will be on the list of water-stressed countries by the year 2025.
(see and )

While the ongoing water shortage is a global phenomenon, with the world's water consumption rising more than twice as fast as its population, experts stress that countries such as India are using their groundwater reserves at an unsustainable rate. Low rainfall coupled with increasing consumption and inadequate means of harvesting water is making water more and more scarce in many parts of India.

The fresh water crisis is already evident in many parts of India, varying in scale and intensity at different times of the year. Many fresh water ecosystems are degrading. The fresh water crisis is not the result of natural factors, but has been caused by human actions. The prevailing drought due to failure of monsoon in 2002, said to be the worst after 1987, has aggravated the situation.

Beginning of the crisis
The seeds of the present water crisis were sown during the early 1980s, when India developed indigenous capabilities for water well drilling in hard rock areas, which provide drinking water for millions of people. But at the same time the number of energised wells drilled for irrigation of cash crops rapidly increased, encouraged by easy credit and subsidised diesel and electricity. India's rapidly rising population and changing lifestyles also increases the need for fresh water.

India although has sufficient water resources but a large population makes per capita availability low. (), ().

Now intense competition among competing users - agriculture, industry and domestic sector - is driving the groundwater table deeper and deeper. Widespread pollution of surface and groundwater is reducing the quality of fresh water resources. Attempts to introduce and enforce legislation have by and large failed. Fresh water is increasingly taking the centre stage on the economic and political agenda, as more and more disputes between and within states, districts, regions and even at the community level arise.
()

Experts believe that already in an agriculture-based state such as Punjab in the north, 98 per cent of groundwater has been exploited. It adds that if the trend continues, the once-fertile Punjab - once known as the country's granary - will turn into a desert. Also in large areas of India due to overexploitation of groundwater resources groundwater levels are falling by 1 to 3 m per year, causing intrusion of seawater into aquifers. Thus water is being rendered unfit for irrigation. Falling groundwater levels are also resulting in higher pumping costs and jeopardising agricultural production.()

The cause of the crisis
The fresh water crisis in India is primarily manmade. India has 1,233 cubic kilometre per annum of renewable water resources and the total water usage is of 646 cubic kilometre per annum. But the problem arises from the fact that these water resources are not uniformly distributed. Northeast India has around 32 per cent of the river water of India and less than 10 per cent of the population.

In case of rainfall, even this source of water is unevenly distributed, both spatially as well as temporally. Most of the rainfall is confined to the monsoon season from June to September and levels of precipitation vary from 100 mm a year in western Rajasthan to over 9,000 mm a year in northeastern Meghalaya.

Water rights
The system of 'water rights' under common law in India, which gives the ownership of groundwater to the landowner, despite the fact that groundwater, is a shared resource from common pool aquifers. There is no check on an individual overexploiting groundwater resources.

Uncontrolled use of the bore-well technology
Uncontrolled use of the bore-well technology, which has allowed the extraction of groundwater, primarily for irrigation, has grown at phenomenal rates, often exceeding recharge of groundwater. This basically means that groundwater levels will fall as has been already happening.

Community control absent
Communities are not being in control of their own water resources. Water is used as a political tool, controlled and cornered by the rich, who do not pay the price for this scarce resource. The poverty of incomes, capabilities and opportunities of many is compounded by 'water poverty.'

Rampant pollution of fresh water resources
Pollution control is not on the priority list of the government and local administrative bodies. Water treatment plants are absent in most industrial and urban areas and untreated waste and chemicals are dumped into rivers and water bodies, rendering their water unfit for human consumption.

The lack of adequate attention to water conservation, efficiency in water use, water re-use, groundwater recharge and eco-system sustainability
In a country like India, where the per-capita water availability is low, special attention needs to be paid to water conservation. Short-sighted pricing policy for public water supply that encourages wasteful use of water needs to be amended as it makes difficult to raise resources for the upkeep and expansion of the system. For the issue of water conservation to get adequate attention that it needs water should be treated as an economic resource.

Impact of water pollution
Nearly 1 million children in India die of diarrhoeal diseases each year directly as a result of drinking unsafe water and living in unhygienic conditions. Some 45 million people are affected by water quality problems caused by pollution, by excess fluoride, arsenic, iron or by the ingress of salt water. Millions do not have adequate quantities of safe water, particularly during the summer months and the result is deaths during extreme heat wave conditions.

The cost of water: opportunity costs
In rural areas, women and girls still have to walk long distances and spend up to four hours every single day to provide the household with water. With increasing opportunities for women to engage in productive employment, the opportunity cost of their time increasingly carries monetary value. If opportunity costs were taken into account, it would be clear that in most rural areas households are paying far more for water supply than the often nominal rates charged in urban areas. These considerations are yet to become a part of the decision-making criteria in water supply programmes.

Strategy to tackle the water crisis
The underlying strategy to control the water crisis is to decentralise the management and regulation of water resources to communities, and to provide them with the authority, responsibility and financial support to manage and protect their water environment. This requires to make people aware of the magnitude of these problems and to appreciate that competing claims have to be settled on the basis of fair and equitable sharing within the limits of the possible.

It also requires setting up transparent and fair mechanisms for regulating the extraction, allocation and use of water, and to induce economical, conservative use in the larger, long-term social interest. Last but not the least - a strict and fair enforcement of the policies by the government and regulatory agencies.

Check overexploitation of groundwater resources
A powerful impetus to groundwater exploitation in agriculture was given by the subsidisation in the cost of lifting water by energised pumps and subsidised rural electrification programmes. The need for more water was felt as the spread of high-yielding varieties, which are more profitable, required more water. This exploitation has been left entirely to the decision of individuals with little, if any, effective regulation.

These decisions are motivated by considerations of short-term profit rather than a concern for collective good or long-term sustainability. What is required is an end to the policy of supplying electricity at highly subsidised rates, and, in its place, vesting the rights of use and its regulation to village communities. Although the implementation looks very difficult due to strong farmer lobby but in view of the nature of the crisis - extreme problems require extreme solutions.

Rainwater harvesting
This technique of trapping rainwater has been successful in raising groundwater levels wherever it has been implemented. Although the government has taken steps to make it mandatory in all new urban constructions, enforcement is often weak. Besides, people are not convinced about the benefits of rain harvesting: They have mistaken notions about its costs and there aren't enough people to give them proper technical advice.

Decentralisation
There is a need to create autonomous and decentralised organisations, with significant user participation, for setting up, financing and managing individual irrigation and domestic water supply systems. This basically means that community awareness and management of fresh water resources should be enhanced.

Environmental restoration
Precipitation in the form of rain and snow recharges water resources. But declining rainfall and snowfall has been a very visible phenomenon in the last decade. Experts believe that this is the result of environmental degradation. Rapid deforestation for wood and for land requirements has raised the average temperature in the ecosystem. These high temperature conditions hinder precipitation.

The solution lies in protecting the existing forestland and restoring the degraded forests. Keeping in mind the nature of the present crisis, reforestation needs to be done on a priority basis.
().

Changes in government policy

• The government needs to implement effective groundwater legislation and regulations through self-regulation by communities and local institutions.
  
• In water supply programmes, redefine basic service levels and reorient technological options.
  
• Water quality should be a central consideration in designing and implementing programmes.
  
• Water should be treated as an economic resource.
  
• External support agencies should support fresh water resource management.

No single action whether community-based, legislation, technological-fix, including traditional water harvesting systems, or reliance on market forces will in itself alleviate the crisis in India. The effective answer to the fresh water crisis is to integrate conservation and development activities at the local level - moving from water extraction to water management. Making communities aware and involving them fully is critical for success.

The suggestions above provide scope for combining conservation of the environment with the basic needs of people. The recent studies done on this topic have strengthened the dictum that what is good for nature is good for people.