ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENT
Short-term Solutions to Water Scarcity in India By Umer Ahmed
The summer of 2019 raised several concerns about the state of water management in India. The southern city of Chennai faced a huge drought, in which water scarcity became an issue for the city’s whole population. In 2019, the rainfall was a drastic 55% lower than expected.1 The monsoon ended early and the city had no rainfall for approximately 200 days.2 Chennai and other major urban centres primarily suffer from a lack of adequate planning for an event of this scale. Citizens were supplied with water from a “water tank mafia” rather than from the government.3 Gangs supplied the citizens with water trucks, charging extortionate prices. In a report published by the Niti Aayog (a government think tank), an estimated 21 cities across India are in danger of running out of groundwater supplies by 2020.4 This policy paper intends to analyse and recommend steps which the Government of India (GoI) can take to effectively deal with water scarcity. India currently has the second largest population in the world, with approximately 1.3 billion people. The state is expected to have the largest population worldwide by 2025, surpassing China.5 The country’s water needs currently constitute around 18% of the global need.6 However, with around 4% of the world’s water resources residing in the country, the mismatch in supply and demand is a question that needs to be answered in the coming decades, especially with the growing population.7 On 28 July 2010 the “Human Right to Water and Sanitation” was recognised by the United Nations General Assembly.8 Moreover, goal 6 of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals lists the goal of “clean and accessible water for all”.9 Currently, there are around 163 million people in India without access to clean water at home.10 Climate change only exacerbates the current problem. Many of India’s northern rivers are fed by the glaciers in its northern states. However, with the increase in global warming, there has been a spike in glacial melt in the Himalayan region.11 Approximately 8 billion tonnes of ice are lost every year.12 Indeed, after 2060, many rivers in India will become depleted due to the eventual lack of glaciers in the Himalayas.13 For now however, the increased melting combined with the erratic and unpredictable monsoon periods means that flooding is more common.14 As with the case of Chennai, the unpredictable monsoon rains, an increase in dry days and a decrease in average annual rainfall have catastrophically worsened the already difficult problem faced by
many Indian states. Current Policies Recognising the seriousness of the problem, the government has recently set up the Ministry of Jal Shakti (Water Power) to deal with water-related problems. To ensure the ministry is prepared for potential future problems, the government has allocated it a massive budget of IN₹282.61 billion (GB£3.07 billion; US$3.94 billion).15 The government has tried to address the issue of glacial melt and water scarcity together with a plan devised to link many rivers in India – Interlinking of Rivers India (ILR).16 The interlinking of rivers is not a unique or new plan. There are successful water-linking projects globally, for example the Danube-Rhine Canal in Europe and the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway in the USA. However, the ILR remains a difficult engineering project of a massive scale. The initial plan was devised in the 1980s but has undergone many recent changes. The plan aims to irrigate an estimated 25 million hectares by surface water and another 10 million by groundwater, and is currently split into 3 main components: Himalayan (northern areas), Peninsular southern areas), And Intrastate links. However, the plan has also drawn great opposition. It does not account for the loss of habitat and for potential desertification of land.17 Bangladesh, which would undoubtedly be affected by the proposed link between the Ganges and Jamuna rivers, has raised concerns about potential ecological damage.18 The ILR would severely impact Bangladesh’s economy, which significantly relies on fishing. This could potentially cause an international problem. Furthermore, the ambitious plan would also come at a substantial cost - an estimated IN₹3.3 trillion (US $168 trillion).19 The ILR is a long-term project which could adequately increase water in rivers by shifting water from one river to another. However, in the short-term, the ILR does not address the problem of water scarcity. Thus, the government of India should look to other, more short-term plans to address the crisis at hand. Policy Proposals There are 3 possible policy options in confronting the problem. 1. Increasing Water Literacy among Farmers
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