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Sustainable Water Security

at a time of Climate Change:

India’s 12th Five Year Plan

Dr. Mihir Shah

Member, Planning Commission

Government of India

February 2011

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Deepening Water Crisis Business-as-usual will not do: Tight Water Budget

Need to move decisively beyond complacency of “denial mode”

MoWR continues to provide a relatively comfortable picture of India’s water budget (1123 BCM supply vs. 634 BCM demand in 2010 rising to 1180 BCM in 2050, which could be conceivably met through additional supply)

Assessment of independent scholars is more sobering

TN Narasimhan of the University of California, Berkeley (2008 in Journal of Earth System Science), questions the estimate of evapo-transpiration and arrives at 654 BCM supply vs. 634 BCM demand in 2010

Nitin Garg of IIT Delhi (2007 in Current Science) suggests that utilisable water resources in India have been over-estimated, indicating current water supply of 668 BCM and a state of over-exploitation of groundwater as early as 1997-98

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Deepening Water Crisis

Business-as-usual will not do: Groundwater Blues

80% of rural drinking water and more than 60% of irrigation (which consumes 80% of our water) comes from groundwater

Data from NASA's GRACE satellites reveals significant rates of non-renewable depletion of groundwater levels over large tracts in alluvial areas

The situation is even more serious in 65-70% hard rock areas

As a result, “slipped-back” drinking water rural habitations rise

And wetlands and rivers dry up due to reduction in base flows

Deepening water tables also raise concerns of quality, exacerbated by poor sanitation practices and chemical pollution via fertiliser use.

Reckless dumping of untreated waste in rural and urban areas have made a mockery of campaigns to clean our rivers

Inadequate sewage treatment capacity, inattention to recycling of wastewater by industry has aggravated the problem

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Deepening Water Crisis

Business-as-usual will not do: Large Dams Major and Medium Irrigation

Gap between potential created and utilized has grown. 3 major reasons:

implementation failures such as faulty project designs, poor lining, de-siltation and shoddy maintenance of distribution channels

the absence or ineffectiveness of Water Users Associations (WUAs)

low technical and managerial capacity of irrigation department staff

Recoveries as a proportion of working expenses in irrigation fell from 26% during 1990-95 to 12% in 1999-2000

Low water charges encourage

inefficient water use

a tendency for head-end canal users to shift to water intensive crops

progressive neglect of maintenance further reducing efficiency

Truly incredible that during the AIBP period (1996-2010), net irrigated area by canals has stagnated

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The Way Forward 1. AIBP Reforms for the 12th Plan

Command Area Development Programme to be tightly linked to the AIBP and not artificially separated as at present. Each AIBP project must include a CADP component.

CAD should occur pari passu with dam construction (include revival of traditional water harvesting systems)

Massive addition to irrigated area possible if we focus on completion of ongoing projects and renovation of existing projects before taking up new ones.

No major investment should be made before land acquisition, relief and rehabilitation and forest clearance

Project completion only when all minors and distributaries and WUAs are in place. Condition for further AIBP support

Agricultural program focused on water use efficiency and water saving technology mandatory for each project.

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The Way Forward 2. Concomitant Reforms

Broaden human resource profile of irrigation department to include social mobilisers (social workers and anthropologists) who ensure effective participation of stakeholder farmers from planning and implementation, to monitoring and maintenance

Rational pricing of water and electricity would also incentivise moves towards higher productivity per drop of water

Separation of electricity feeders for agriculture and domestic use can break “energy-groundwater nexus”

Greater procurement and price support to dry land crops could incentivise farmers to shift away from water-intensive crops.

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The Way Forward

3. New Impetus to Watershed Management

Given all the problems facing large dams in India, a strong case for according higher priority to watershed management

The Parthasarathy Committee report suggested path-breaking reforms which demand a series of initiatives and partnerships

The progress of IWMP has not been encouraging on institutional development, capacity building and livelihoods orientation

NRAA performance has also been below par

Planning Commission has made detailed suggestions to the DoLR for new impetus to IWMP

A complete revamp of NRAA is underway so that it can provide intellectual leadership to the programme

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The Way Forward 4. Sustainable Groundwater Management

The MTA of the 11th Plan has completed a Typology of India’s Hydrogeological Settings

New scheme to be launched to prepare a comprehensive map of aquifers at a watershed scale, with their storage and transmission characteristics

A much more dense network of observation wells to monitor water levels and groundwater quality across aquifers

This will enable preparation of aquifer management plans

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The Way Forward 4. Sustainable Groundwater Management

Top-down regulation of 25 million groundwater structures has massive transaction costs and severely tests admin capacities

FAO supported Andhra Pradesh Farmer Managed Groundwater Systems project in 7 districts shows a different way forward

Farmers become “barefoot hydrogeologists”, engage in data collection and analysis, build understanding of dynamics of groundwater in local aquifers

Groundwater Management Committees federate into Aquifer Associations

Crop water budgeting and access to improved farm practices and water saving techniques

Farmer Water Schools build capacities, enable informed choices

Total outreach of the project is estimated at 1 million farmers.

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The Way Forward 5. River Basin Planning

Holistic and statutory participatory water planning in each river basin, involving stakeholders, especially PRIs/ULBs at each stage

Determination and enforcement of environmentally sustainable limits on surface and ground water that may be withdrawn from each basin.

On this basis, the plan will determine the maximum long-term annual average volumes of water that can be sustainably drawn from the basin, clearly delineating the requirements of drinking water and the environment

The aim is to build pathways for the return of all overdrawn ground water and surface water systems to environmentally sustainable levels of extraction

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The Way Forward 6. Legal Reform

Conflict between Common Law (groundwater as part of the soil in which it exists) and Public Trust Doctrine propounded by Supreme Court (state holds water as a trustee; duty to ensure right to water, safeguard public interest and ecology)

Need a new Groundwater Law in consonance with PTD

Without this legal reform, mining of groundwater will be impossible to control

This reform, as also river basin planning, needs to happen within an overarching Water Framework Law (a la the EU Water Framework Directive passed in the year 2000)

Water Policy needs transparent, effective, coherent legislative structure, common principles and overall framework for action

New Groundwater Bill and Water Framework Law being drafted by 12th Plan Working Group on Water Governance

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The Way Forward

7. Reform of Urban Water

A 2007 study of 20 major water utilities in urban India revealed an average 4 hours of water supply per day

Wastewater treatment facilities cover no more than 30% of the wastewater generated in Class I cities

The proportion of water recycled by Indian industry must be raised to protect water quality both in our rivers and in groundwater

Make JNNURM support conditional upon time-bound setting up of wastewater treatment facilities and water recycling

100% metering of both production and consumption

improved human resource profile and capacity building of utilities/ULBs

volumetric pricing regimes that operate in a transparent and participatory manner, while protecting minimum water requirements of all

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The Way Forward

8. Regulatory Authorities at State Level

We need regulatory bodies in each State for resolution of conflicts across uses and users, as also to meet environmental needs and ensure sustainability.

Undertakers of a natural monopoly, the water/wastewater industry need to be regulated to protect customer interests

International experience indicates that regulators provide the cutting-edge of competition

Regulators also help create a transparent and participatory process of price determination

While some States like Maharashtra have set up regulators, we need to ensure that such bodies have the right human resource profile

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The Way Forward

9. National Water Commission

India need a National Water Commission that would monitor compliance with the national water strategy

The reports of the NWC would be an invaluable guide to investment clearances provided by the Planning Commission and environmental clearances provided by the Ministry of Environment and Forests

Currently there is no mechanism to monitor compliance with conditionalities, which remain toothless/on paper

The NWC would also operate in a “name and shame” mode, serving notice to negligent States.

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The Way Forward 10. The Next Few Steps

In preparation for the 12th Plan, Planning Commission has set up a Steering Committee on Water Resources headed by Member (Water Resources) with 8 Working Groups under it, each concerned with issues highlighted in this presentation

The Working Groups have representatives from central and state governments, academics, civil society and industry

Member (Water Resources) will actively engage with the Working Groups, whose deliberations and reports will serve to further strengthen and flesh out the propositions set out here

This will also mark the beginning of a process of building a broader consensus on the reform approach outlined here, which will greatly facilitate its roll out during the 12th Plan period.