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Water Stress in India

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June 20, 2018

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.
  • The report attributes the water crisis to unsustainable cropping trends.
  • This in turn is attributed to ill-advised incentives
  1. liberally determined minimum support prices
  2. assured marketing through open-ended procurement
  3. subsidised or free supply of water and power

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

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