The NITI Aayog report on Composite Water Management Index(CWMI) said that India is facing its ‘worst’ water crisis in history. Taps in Shimla went dry in summer of 2018, posing an unprecedented water crisis in the hill town. According to a forecast by the Asian Development Bank, India will have a water deficit of 50% by 2030. Recent studies also ranked Chennai and Delhi at the top of the 27 most vulnerable Asian cities in terms of low per-day water availability Mumbai and Kolkata follow close.

Body:

Current water crisis in India:

• The annual per capita availability of water continues to decline sharply from about 5,177 cubic metres in 1951 to about 1,720 cubic metres in 2019.
• The NITI Aayog in its report on Composite Water Management Index (2018) has underlined that currently 600 million people face high to extreme water stress.
• Twenty-one cities, including Delhi, Bengaluru, Chennai and Hyderabad will run out of groundwater by 2020, affecting 100 million people.
• The rate of groundwater extraction is so severe that NASA’s findings suggest that India’s water table is declining alarmingly at a rate of about 0.3 metres per year.
• At this rate of depletion, India will have only 22 per cent of the present daily per capita water available in 2050, possibly forcing the country to import water.

Causative factors for water crisis:

• A combination of population explosion, unplanned growth of the city and its expansion to some traditional catchment areas (a region from which rainfall flows into a river, lake, or reservoir) have led to a reduction in the natural flow of water, and large-scale deforestation.
• Climate change, leading to much lower precipitation during the winter months. As a result, the natural flow and recharge of water in the region has fallen sharply
• Failure of State governments to check unplanned development and exploitation of water resources. There is no attempt at the central or state levels to manage water quantity and quality
• The vegetation pattern has changed, tree cover is shrinking and unscientific dumping of debris in water streams is rampant.
• The debris blocks the natural course of water bodies.
• Increasing number of tube wells resulting in depletion of groundwater.
• Changes in farming patterns lead to consumption of more water for irrigation and also change the soil profile because of the use of fertilizers
• The states ranked lowest like Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Jharkhand – are home to almost half of India’s population along with the majority of its agricultural produce.
• There is also a lack of interest in maintaining India’s traditional water harvesting structures.

Challenges in Water Governance in India:

• The lack of credible “water information,” that is, information about water storage, groundwater, water flows and, in some cases, even rainfall and snowfall levels.
• Data is often not available at the adequate level of detail. For example, water use data for domestic and industrial sectors is available at only the aggregate level, and thus provides very little information to relevant policymakers and suppliers.
• Second, where data is available, it is often unreliable due to the use of outdated collection techniques and methodologies.
• The water institutions viz. Central Water Commission (CWC), Central Ground Water Board, Central Ground Water Authority, State Pollution Control Boards and Central Pollution Control Board show a typical top-down, bureaucratic, unaccountable, non-transparent and non-participatory mindset.
• There is neither national policy nor national or state water resource establishments which acknowledge the groundwater crisis reality.
• The big irrigation, hydropower, multipurpose and river-linking projects that are getting a push, which both directly and indirectly adversely affect groundwater recharge and sustainability.
• Grave dam safety issues, as was also evident in the case of Kerala floods in August 2018.
• Issues of monitoring of water quality and environmental flows, protecting the floodplains and sustainable biodiversity in the rivers, achieving sustainable sand mining, and credible reservoir and flood management in rivers are missing.

Measures needed to strengthen water Governance:

• Deepen our understanding of our water resources and usage and put in place interventions that make our water use efficient and sustainable.
• Augmentation of watersheds that can store more good water, for use in agriculture and to serve habitations.
• Strict pollution control enforcement.
• Decentralisation of irrigation commands, offering higher financial flows to well-performing States through a National Irrigation Management Fund.
• Groundwater extraction patterns need to be better understood through robust data collection.
• Pollution can be curbed by levying suitable costs.
• Poor maintenance of pipelines, consistent leakage and illegal tapping of water are some of the issues that need to be addressed on a war-footing.
• Adopting rainwater harvesting techniques is the need of the hour.
• A legal mandate will work better than just competition and cooperation; it would make governments accountable.
• These forward-looking changes would need revamped national and State institutions, and updated laws.
• Urban India needs to focus on recycling and harvesting water, having better testing and purification facilities and increase public awareness on the need to conserve water.
• Large catchment areas need to be developed around water bodies so that natural recharge of groundwater takes place. A good example is the Seog catchment area which has been denoted as a wildlife sanctuary and where no construction is allowed.
• Greywater recycling, a method of recycling wastewater from kitchen sinks, showers and laundry fixtures.
• Greywater recycling helps reduce household water usage by about 50% .
• This year’s World Water Development Report makes it clear that nature-based solutions which are also aligned with the principles and aims of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development can offer answers to our most pressing water-related challenges.

Conclusion:

There is a need for credible environmental and cumulative impact assessments, genuine public consultation process at multiple stages of planning and project implementation, confidence-inspiring appraisal, which includes the appointment of independent experts, and most crucially, achieving some real monitoring and compliance. The water governance ought to be made transparent, accountable and participatory in every sub-sector, including management of rivers, groundwater, floods, and biodiversity, among others.