On World Water Day (March 22), Indian PM launched a campaign named ‘Catch the rain’, under the Centre’s flagship Jal Shakti Abhiyan.
In this context, here is an overview on Indian agriculture’s water efficiency.
What is the ‘Catch the rain’ campaign?
Under this campaign, drives to make check dams, water harvesting pits, rooftop RWHS (rain water harvesting system), etc will be made.
Other measures to be taken up with the active participation of people include -
removal of encroachments and de-silting of tanks to increase their storage capacity
removal of obstructions in the channels which bring water to them from the catchment areas, etc
repairs to step-wells
using defunct bore-wells and unused wells to put water back to aquifers, etc
To facilitate these activities, states have been requested to open “Rain Centers” in each district.
This centre acts as a technical guidance centre to all in the district as to how to catch the rain, as it falls, where it falls.
Under the initiative, all water bodies in the districts are to be enumerated (checked with revenue records) and encroachments to be removed.
How is India's water usage scenario?
Central Water Commission’s assessment of water availability using space inputs (2019) sheds light on this.
Accordingly, India receives mean annual precipitation of about 3,880 billion cubic metres (bcm).
But it utilizes only 699 bcm (18%of the above).
The rest is being lost to evaporation and other factors.
The demand for water is likely to be 843 bcm in 2025 and 1,180 bcm by 2050.
Notably, these targets are not beyond reach.
It only requires being focused and following an appropriate strategy.
The need is to not only ‘catch more rain’ but also manage demand of water better.
UN’s report on Sustainable Development Goal-6 (SDG-6) - Clean water and sanitation for all by 2030 - also notes on this.
As per this, India achieved only 56.6% of the target by 2019, indicating the need to move much faster.
Composite Water Management Index of Niti Aayog (2019) shows that 75% households in India do not have access to drinking water on their premises.
India is ranked 120th amongst 122 countries in the water quality index.
It is identified as a water-stressed country.
Its per capita water availability is declining from nearly 5,000 cubic metre (m3)/year in 1951 to around 1,500 m3 in 2011.
This is likely to go down further to 1,140 m3 by 2050.
All these hint at a worrying picture of India in the water front.
What is the right approach now?
Agriculture uses about 78% of India’s freshwater resources.
As India develops, the share of drinking water, industry, and other uses is also likely to rise.
The need of the hour is thus to produce ‘more crop per drop.’
It requires not just increasing land productivity measured as tonnes per hectare (t/ha) but also maximising applied irrigation productivity measured as kilograms or Rs per cubic meter of water (kg/m3).
How is the irrigation scenario?
For decades, there had been large public and private investments in irrigation.
However, only about half of India’s gross cropped area (198 million hectares) is irrigated.
Groundwater contributes about 64%, canals 23%, tanks 2% and other sources 11% to this irrigation.
This results primarily from the skewed incentive of free or highly subsidised power.
This is particularly the case in the northwestern belt of India, the erstwhile seat of the Green Revolution.
Over-exploitation of groundwater has made this region one amongst the three top water-risk hotspots.
The others being northeastern China and southwestern US (California).
Overall, about 1,592 blocks in 256 districts in India are either critical or overexploited.
What is to be done?
If water is to be used more wisely in agriculture, two crops - rice and sugarcane - deserve special attention.
These two crops consume almost 60% of India’s irrigation water.
While Punjab scores high on land productivity of rice, it is at the bottom with respect to applied irrigation water productivity.
Similarly, in case of sugarcane, irrigation water productivity in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu is only a third that of Bihar and UP.
Thus, there is a need to realign cropping patterns based on a per unit of applied irrigation water productivity.
Technologies exist that can produce the same output with almost half the irrigation water in these two crops.
Drip-irrigation is one of the options that is showing promising outcomes.
Direct Seeded Rice (DSR) and System of Rice Intensification (SRI) can also save 25-30% of water compared to traditional flood irrigation.
But, for technological solutions to make headway, pricing policies of agri-inputs should be put on the right track.
Farmers should also be incentivised for saving water.
E.g. Punjab government, along with the World Bank and J-PAL, has launched certain pilots under its Paani Bachao Paise Kamao policy.
It is to encourage rational use of water among farmers.
Under the initiative, water-meters are installed on the farmers’ pumps.
If they save water/power compared to what they have been using (taken as entitlement), they get paid for those savings, with direct transfers to their bank accounts.
It is thus time to switch from highly subsidised pricing of water, power, and even fertilisers, to direct income support on a per hectare basis.
Water and power need to be priced as per their economic value or at least to recover significant part of their costs to ensure sustainable agriculture.
Also, investment policies should help farmers with newer technologies and innovations.
