Water management is everybody's business

Watershed: How We Destroyed India’s Water and How We Can Save It

Author: Mridula Ramesh

Publisher: Hachette India
Pages: 380

Price: Rs 699

The main title of the book is misleading. It is not about watersheds in the context of watershed development in the country. It is everything about water that one should know. The sub-title captures the wide canvas Mridula Ramesh has covered — from Vedic texts to Sangam literature, personal experiences, innovations, pioneering works and latest research — to understand the issues confronting India’s water sector and pathways to redeem it. The central message is: “The realisation that we are responsible for our water and we need to manage it”.

One of the first issues that comes up in any discussion on water is about how much water we have. She has used the Central Water Commission (CWC) figures that put utilisable water at 1,137 BCM (Billion Cubic Metre). Some researchers have contested this figure. The late T N Narasimhan said it is only 654 BCM. Why this huge difference? Because CWC and Narasimhan have used different evapotranspiration (ET) rates—the CWC has used 45 per cent ET and Narasimhan used 65 per cent ET, which is supposed to be in line with global estimations. Even if the truth is in between, the utilisable water will be about 896 BCM. We are already using about 634 BCM. By 2050 this use might touch 1,200 BCM. This calls for urgent steps to reduce our water footprint through demand management of domestic, agricultural and industrial water uses, especially in the context of a warming climate and demographic shifts.

The book discusses how colonial powers “foundationally destabilised India’s water regimen”. Shifts in cropping patterns to suit British interests and often not in keeping with the local water availability, imposition of fixed cash taxes, large-scale deforestation, which impacted river flows, have all contributed to the destruction of traditional water systems. Towards the end of the 19th century, a new approach marked a departure from traditional water system worldviews. Called the hydraulic mission, large dams, power generation and huge transmission networks and large-scale water resource development are the outcomes of this approach. Though the West has long given up on this approach, India still is in “hydraulic mission” mode.

The author rightly emphasises sewage management: “Treating sewage creates a powerful ally for boosting India’s water resilience; it is literally the brahmastra in our back pockets in addressing India’s water crisis”. Urban India produces about 62,000 million litres of sewage a day. According to the Central Pollution Control Board, the installed capacity to treat this sewage is 37 per cent and just 30 per cent is actually treated. The treated sewage can be used to flush toilets or to meet luxury urban uses such as watering lawns and gardens and washing vehicles, easing the pressure on fresh water. Problems of scale and insufficient financial capacity of urban local bodies are the two reasons the author has identified for this sorry state of affairs. She also draws attention to the need for innovative, decentralised solutions as conventional sewage treatment plants are expensive and have a large carbon footprint.

The author does not hide her fascination for water technologies, old and new. However, she recognises that the context in which technology is placed and the incentives of those using the technology are important. Drip irrigation, for example, does not lead to water saving, or less abstraction, say, at a basin scale; it does not make the saved water available to those who have no access; what it does is to help resourceful farmers use the saved water to bring in more area under irrigation.

Some of the positions the author has taken are open to contestation. Her opposition to extend the minimum support price for all agriculture produce (not just wheat and rice) as an instrument of demand management, support for futurist water trade or advocacy of the American experience of reducing the workforce in agriculture to about 4 per cent as a possible pathway for India need careful examination. Institutional issues related to water management and governance do not find mention in the book. The story of Malkapur, a small town in Maharashtra, discussed in the book as a good example of elected representatives, civil society and bureaucracy working together, offers important lessons for institutional reforms and water pricing. They adopted a graded tariff system with lower prices for anyone who consumed less than 55 litres per day and for anyone who paid in early. The author is aware of the need to build consensus among civil society, academics, and the political class on a reform agenda. Only then can we usher in reforms to restructure the water sector on sustainable, efficient and democratic lines and make it capable of facing the challenges of a warming climate.

The reviewer works with SOPPECOM, Pune, and is part of the Forum for Policy Dialogue on Water Conflicts in India