India will have to get its

act together on
urban water
India’s water crisis is even more serious than its energy crisis
though this is not generally realised

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Written by Isher Judge Ahluwalia | Updated: July 27, 2016 8:37 am

In India 62 per cent of urban households have access to treated tap water and
only a little over 50 per cent are directly connected to a piped network.
(Illustration: C R Sasikumar)

India’s water crisis is even more serious than its energy crisis though this is not
generally realised. For energy, alternative sources such as solar and wind energy
are becoming more cost-effective. For water, the only major alternative available is
desalination and it is far too expensive.
Until about a decade ago, water was seen as a key requirement for the agricultural
sector, and the focus was on the need to invest in infrastructure for irrigation, which
would reduce the dependence of our farmers on rains and also meet the rural
drinking needs. The Green Revolution accentuated the need to secure water for the
high- yielding varieties of foodgrains. However, inadequate investments and poor
planning and maintenance of the irrigation infrastructure meant that canal irrigation
was much less effective than planned. Farmers turned to groundwater with zeal and
they could do this because groundwater extraction was unregulated.

Free or cheap electricity also meant that farmers turned to tubewells and electric
pumps as preferred instruments for lifting water from underground. About 80 per
cent of the addition to the net irrigated area in India since 1970 has come from
groundwater. Since water is not economically priced, it is used inefficiently through
flood irrigation. For the same reason, water-intensive crops are grown in areas
where water is highly scarce; for example, rice in Punjab and sugarcane in
Maharashtra, thereby contributing further to the decline in water tables.

Over the past decade or so, unplanned urbanisation has highlighted the water
problems facing urban India: Declining water tables and a serious challenge of
water pollution. Urbanisation has been gathering momentum with India’s rapid
growth. While only a third or so of the population is urban, the share of urban GDP
in the total is close to two-thirds. India’s urban population is projected to increase
to 600 million and urban share of GDP to 75 per cent by 2031. It is not clear how
the resulting increase in urban water demand will be met. Releasing water from
agriculture by improving efficiency in water use will certainly help, since agriculture
accounts for 80 per cent of the total use of water in the country. Recycling
wastewater is another potential source of augmenting water supply for urban areas.

This requires that drinking water, sewerage and wastewater treatment, stormwater
drains, and also solid waste management be planned and managed in an integrated
manner. These services are actually being managed in silos, in some cases by the
urban local governments themselves though they are not sufficiently empowered
and in other cases by parastatal institutions (metro boards) of state governments.
Even the national missions are encouraging a fragmented approach by separating
solid waste management under Swacch Bharat from the rest under Amrut, and
even worse, dispensing with the requirement of a city development plan in which all
projects must be anchored.

The result is that the state of water delivery in Indian cities is visibly highly deficient.
Only 62 per cent of urban households have access to treated tap water and only a
little over 50 per cent are directly connected to a piped network. The average
connected household receives water for approximately two hours per day. Only 33
per cent of the urban population is covered by a piped sewer system, while close to
40 per cent is dependent on septic tanks, and 13 per cent still defecate in the open.
Stormwater drains are inadequate and ill-maintained, and even natural drains which
provide safe exit to stormwater including flood water are either encroached upon or
are carrying sewage. Natural recharge zones are typically not taken into account in
planning for urban expansion.

Stormwater drains are inadequate and ill-maintained, and even natural drains which
provide safe exit to stormwater including flood water are either encroached upon or
are carrying sewage. Natural recharge zones are typically not taken into account in
planning for urban expansion.Wastewater treatment has been a neglected area in
India’s urban water planning, even though it is crucial to keep our rivers and
groundwater clean and also to augment supplies by generating “used water” for
gardening, flushing, etc. The capacity to treat sewage or wastewater is only 37 per
cent of the total need in the country, and the actual treatment is even less, only 30
per cent

Wastewater treatment has been a neglected area in India’s urban water planning,
even though it is crucial to keep our rivers and groundwater clean and also to
augment supplies by generating “used water” for gardening, flushing, etc. The
capacity to treat sewage or wastewater is only 37 per cent of the total need in the
country, and the actual treatment is even less, only 30 per cent

The sewage treatment capacity is also sometimes redundantly utilised as in the case
of Delhi where treated wastewater is discharged into drains and allowed to mix
with untreated sewage flowing into the natural storm water drains, and the unholy
mixture finally discharges into the river. No wonder then that the Central Pollution
Control Board finds that 75 per cent of the measurable pollution in our rivers is
from municipal sewage and 25 per cent from industrial effluents. Surveys of
groundwater also show high levels of microbiological contamination, clearly
suggesting contamination from municipal sewage. The implications of polluted and
unsafe water and poor sanitation are extremely serious for public health. WHO
data shows that half of India’s morbidity is water related, and there is ample
evidence to show that water-borne diseases have been on the rise in the country.

When public policy fails to deliver, the gap gets filled by private providers creating
markets for water. The solution has been similar to what happened in the case of
agriculture: There is increasing but unaccounted use of groundwater by extensive
digging of bore wells to meet the demand deficit. The stories of the tanker mafia in
Delhi are legendary. The result is an accelerated decline in water tables and also
increased contamination from fluoride, arsenic, and mercury as efforts are made to
dig deeper.

India is the largest user of groundwater in the world with groundwater abstraction
at 251 cubic km per year, which is more than double that of China’s. What is
more, India’s use of groundwater is much in excess of the actual recharge being
carried out. Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan and Delhi fare the worst in this respect. A
recent assessment by NASA showed a decline in the water table for these 4 states
at an average rate of 4 cm per annum.

The 12th Five Year Plan had called for a paradigm shift and proposed a
comprehensive programme for the mapping of India’s aquifers as a prerequisite and
a precursor to a National Ground Water Management Programme, and some pilot
projects have been initiated.

Groundwater use in India is currently governed by the framework of British

common law sanctified by the Indian Easement Act of 1882. This provides that a
landowner has the absolute right to draw any amount of ground water from under
the land owned by him. The attempt at legislative reform in the past focused mostly
on allocation and setting up a public regulatory authority for groundwater regulation
and management such that the state government will take the final decision. The
government of India is currently working on a national water framework bill and
also a model groundwater bill which addresses the challenges of equitable access
and aquifer protection, moving away from the focus on the link between land
ownership and control over groundwater and treating groundwater as a common
pool resource to be exploited only for public good. State governments could adapt
the bill to their specific context. This is a bold step which is long overdue. How
easy it would be to enforce such a system given the weak capacity for governance
at the local government level remains to be seen, though it is clear that this is the
only way to go.

(This article first appeared in the print edition under the headline ‘Cities at
Crossroads: A looming crisis’)

The writer is chairperson of Icrier, Delhi, and former chairperson of the high-
powered expert committee on urban infrastructure and services.