Water Stress in India

What is the issue?

The NITI Aayog’s water management index was released recently. Click here to know more.
This, along with a NABARD sponsored study on water productivity of different crops depicts the country’s increasing water stress.

What are the highlights of NITI Aayog's report?

The current water crisis in the country is said to be the worst in history.
NITI Aayog maintains that about 600 million people face high to extreme water scarcity.
This is almost half the population of the country.
About 200,000 people die every year due to lack of safe water.
The crisis will escalate with the water availability dwindling to merely half of the effective demand by 2030.
Groundwater resources (40% of total water supply) are also predicted to deplete rapidly.
This may accentuate water paucity in both rural and urban areas.
Some 21 cities, including Delhi, Bengaluru and Hyderabad, will almost run out of groundwater by as soon as 2020.
If these come true, around 40% of the population will lose access to water.
Also, the gross domestic product (GDP) will take a hit of about 6%.

What does NABARD's study reveal?

It holds the overuse of water in the agricultural sector responsible for the present adversity.
Over two-thirds of the nation’s available water is consumed in the farm sector.
In this, about 80% goes just to three crops — rice, wheat and sugarcane.
The most intensive cultivation of these water-guzzling crops is high in water-stressed regions.
E.g. sugarcane in Maharashtra, rice and wheat in Punjab and Haryana.

What are the possible solutions?

The largely academic suggestions mooted in these reports to remedy the situation include the following:
Effective pricing for water and power.
Greater marketing support for water-efficient crops in water-constrained areas.
A general shift from price support to cash transfer to let the actual crop prices to be determined by market forces.
Dis-incentivising the cultivation of water-intensive crops in states like Maharashtra, Punjab and Haryana.
Shifting these crops to water-rich eastern and north-eastern regions.

What is the way forward?

It is to be noted that present water crisis is largely man-made.
India is not an inherently water-starved country.
It receives annually about 2,600 billion cubic metres (BCM) of water through rain and snow.
However, only around 258 BCM (or less than a tenth) can potentially be stored in available water reservoirs.
Measures such as rainwater harvesting to conserve water have to be taken.
The efficient use of water in farming through micro-irrigation should be ensured.
This would be more sustainable than changing the cropping patterns in order to withstand the water crisis.

Source: Business Standard