THE LAST DROP? A guide for media practitioners to the critical water issues facing India today

Transcription

1 THE LAST DROP? A guide for media practitioners to the critical water issues facing India today

2 Welcome to the International Water Management Institute s (IWMI s) first-ever media guide for journalists in India. We hope this guide will serve as a useful background and a starting point for informative stories about water management issues for your readers, viewers and listeners. We believe the topic is timely and critical. Total water demand in India is expected to rise by a third by 2050, in part because of a swelling population. If business as usual continues, many of India's river basins won t have adequate water resources to meet development needs and protect the environment. India will need to make large investments in recharging groundwater, rainwater harvesting, micro-irrigation and other water-saving technologies to boost crop yields and avert regional water crises. While the picture is challenging, there is reason for optimism. For example, as water resources become scarce and more expensive to access, farmers will have the incentive to invest in water-saving technologies. IWMI examines the key water management issues in India with the support of donor governments, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), private enterprises such as the Sir Ratan Tata Trust and Nestlé, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. What government officials say at conferences is important, but may not be the whole story. Scientists, such as those at IWMI, are good sources of information. They are interested in examining the problems and coming up with solutions. Other sources range from business officials to NGOs to farmers. We encourage journalists to examine the critical water issues facing India today, and to cover stories that have the most impact on their audience. Look for stories in which water intersects with other issues such as climate change, energy, development, poverty, biodiversity and business. Bharat R. Sharma Principal Researcher and Coordinator IWMI India Copyright 2013, by IWMI. All rights reserved. IWMI encourages the use of its material provided that the organization is acknowledged and kept informed in all such instances. Printed: August, 2013 THE LAST DROP? A guide for media practitioners to the critical water issues facing India today

3 Agriculture is a critical sector of India s economy. The Green Revolution of the late 1960s and 1970s boosted wheat yields and helped avert widespread food shortages. However, food security is now fragile, with only 8 to 10% of the land producing most of the food. Available farmland is declining because of population pressures. Groundwater over-pumping and unproductive soils due to erosion, excessive chemicals and salinity are also posing serious challenges in many areas. India s water productivity is lower than international standards. China, for example, produces triple the amount of food produced by India with less water. As in colonial times, irrigation continues to be the most dominant expense related to agriculture. Farmer suicides have increased in some areas because of financial hardships caused by high costs, falling water tables and poor soils. PIC: Michael Foley on Flickr The contribution of the agriculture sector to the gross domestic product (GDP) has fallen steeply from 30% in to 14.5% in About half of India s workforce is employed by the farm sector, and the average Indian spends almost half of their total expenditure on food. The total farming area has remained stable at around 141 million hectares during the last few decades. More than half of private agricultural investments are groundwater-related. AGRICULTURE AGRICULTURE

4 India s urban water supply is usually sourced from local wetlands, lakes, reservoirs and, more recently, groundwater. In almost all Indian cities, water supply is irregular, scarce and unequal in its distribution. The poor are often forced to pay more to private vendors, spend more time waiting in queues or travelling long distances to access water. Public-private partnerships in urban water and sanitation infrastructure are controversial for being too costly for the low-income sector, but they are a fact of life in many urban areas. As cities lose their water sources and expand rapidly, the transportation of water from distant areas is not just becoming a huge expense, but is also creating an urban-rural divide by usurping water that is traditionally used by rural communities. Such forcible re-allocation of water is sparking protests and conflict. Additionally, urban wetlands are in crisis, with polluted sewage choking their life support systems or wetlands simply disappearing due to urban development. The lack of wastewater treatment is partly responsible for this. PIC: Chhandak Pradhan/IWMI India s exploding urban population is expected to rise from 382 million to 600 million by 2031, which will put a strain on already weak water supply infrastructure. In areas where there is city water, about 50% is lost during distribution. In New Delhi, high-income zones receive 462 liters of water per capita per day compared with 29 liters per capita per day in the slums of the Mehrauli neighborhood on the city outskirts. In Bangalore, wetland marshes have all but disappeared, from 262 in 1962 to 17 as of CITIES CITIES

5 India s vulnerability to climate change crosses all sectors of development and the economy. Water resources are expected to decline precipitously as a result of climate change, thereby having an effect on agriculture, livestock, regional and coastal ecosystems, the economy and health. Climate variability has increased in the last decade and, as average temperatures continue to rise, more extreme weather events can be expected. India has a number of measures planned to tackle the issue. The National Action Plan on Climate Change has eight missions, including reforestation and investing in sustaining habitats. The Draft National Water Policy (2012) emphasizes the need for comprehensive legislation. PIC: F. Fiondella (IRI/CCAFS) Average temperatures are estimated to rise by 1.7 to 2 C by the 2030s, affecting all sectors of the economy. Water resources are projected to decline by 40% by the 2030s. Some western coastal areas could see a decline of up to 50%. CLIMATE CHANGE CLIMATE CHANGE

6 India is the world s third-largest builder of dams, after China and the United States. The country has more than 5,000 dams, the majority of which are used for irrigation and hydropower. A staggering USD 90 billion (351,000 crores) has been invested in dams since India s First Five Year Plan was launched in Hydropower accounts for nearly 20% of India s electricity production, with the potential for much more. Dams can help flood control and river navigation. However, the performance of dams in India, overall, has been poor, and their construction has generated controversy due to community displacement, environmental degradation and loss of livelihoods. The most contentious projects are in the ecologically fragile Himalayan region. More than 300 dams are proposed or under construction in the Northeast, with plans to add 300,000 megawatts of power capacity by If all plans come to fruition, the area would have the highest dam density in the world. More than 2,000 dams in India are considered large above 10 meters in height. The Sardar Sarovar Dam project in Gujarat State has been the subject of controversy and protests since the late 1980s. The 2,000-megawatt Lower Subansiri project in Arunachal Pradesh, located in northeast India, will become the country s largest hydroelectric plant when completed. However, it raises seismic concerns, and threatens biodiversity and the livelihoods of indigenous communities downstream. The impact assessments of the Wildlife Institute of India project massive deforestation in the Alaknanda and Bhagirathi basins of the Ganges River, if all hydropower schemes planned for that area went ahead. DAMS PIC: Ranjit Vasant Deshmukh, Courtesy of Photoshare DAMS

7 The lack of comprehensive regulations and control over the use of water has led to a situation of near-chaos in all sectors of water resources management. According to the Indian Constitution, water is under state jurisdiction, with the central government intervening only in inter-state river disputes or in enacting national water laws. However, the reality is that water is managed in a very fragmented manner, and some inter-state disputes have simmered for years without a resolution being found. PIC: UN Women Gallery on Flickr Local entities, the state government and no fewer than 11 national government ministries handle the management of land and water resources, making its administration ambiguous, political and inefficient. The government has no direct control over the use of groundwater by millions of owners of private wells and pump sets. The central government s Twelfth Five Year Plan acknowledges the problem and outlines measures for better water resources management, albeit in a sectoral manner. GOVERNANCE GOVERNANCE

8 Despite multi-billion dollar investments, India continues to struggle with providing safe drinking water and good sanitation to its citizens. Less than three-quarters of rural households have access to safe drinking water. According to the United Nations Children s Fund (UNICEF), a staggering half of the population still defecates in the open. Millions of people, especially women and children, die each year from illnesses such as diarrhea as a result of poor sanitation. According to the World Bank, the lack of safe drinking water and adequate sanitation exerts a tremendous drag on India s economy, which is equivalent to a loss of about 6% of its gross domestic product (GDP). PIC: Malini Shakar/IPS Despite investing nearly USD 20 billion (about 100,000 crores) on drinking water and sanitation from 1951 to 2009, only about 70% of rural households have access to safe drinking water. According to a national survey in 2009, about 65% of rural households and 11% of urban households don t have toilet facilities. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), nearly one in every 10 deaths in India is linked to poor sanitation and hygiene. Approximately 1.5 million children die, globally, from diarrhea each year. India accounts for about one-quarter of those deaths. SANITATION SANITATION

9 India is the world s largest user of groundwater, consuming approximately a quarter of the world s total availability. If current trends persist, 60% of India s aquifers will be vulnerable to depletion in 20 years, especially in the northwest and south. Subsidized power to farmers has led to unsustainable well drilling and water pumping.urban reliance on groundwater is also steadily increasing due to unreliable and inadequate municipal water supplies. Environment and human health are at risk, with growing reports of contamination by salinity, chemicals and heavy metals. A deepening issue is the link between fluoride-contaminated groundwater and disability in children. PIC: Columbia Water Center on Flickr More than 60% of water for agriculture and 85% of rural drinking water comes from groundwater. Bore-well irrigation skyrocketed from 1% in 1960 to 60% in India has an estimated 27 million wells, with bore wells accounting for more than 50% of the total. According to the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation, groundwater contamination (such as arsenic poisoning along the Indo-Gangetic Plain) continues to be a pressing issue. More than 4,000 and nearly 18,000 households affected by arsenic and fluoride, respectively, remain untreated. GROUNDWATER GROUNDWATER

10 Inequitable access to water by the poor and marginalized is a rural and urban problem. The problem has been exacerbated by water scarcity, over-pumping and legal ambiguities. The lack of regulation has resulted in industry and cities getting preferential treatment in access to water. While the right to water has been interpreted as a constitutional right, more than a third of India s households still have no access to safe drinking water. This is despite government claims that it has provided drinking water to all ahead of the 2015 deadline for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Access to water is also used as a means of control in rural areas to reinforce power and age-old social hierarchies of caste and creed. Despite activism and education, access to water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) programs continues to elude those who need it most: so-called scheduled castes, tribal people, the poor, the disabled, other minorities and those with HIV/AIDS. Women have also been excluded from taking up key roles in water resources management. PIC: International Rivers on Flickr According to the 2011 Census, 20% of Indians travel more than a half a kilometer to collect drinking water, and more than 20% get their water from unsafe sources. According to the 2008 National Sample Survey, only 18.5% of tribal households (referred to as Scheduled Tribes ) have access to tap water compared with 30.1% of all households. According to a survey of 24 metro-cities and 18 smaller cities, only 5% of piped water reaches slums, which is partly due to the lack of infrastructure. RIGHTS RIGHTS

11 A majority of India s river basins are in crisis because of over-exploitation, inadequate governance and pollution. India has 13 major river basins constituting 85% of total surface water flow. Eighty-percent of the country s population lives in those basins. The Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act has been in place since 1974, but little attention has been given to river ecology. One fallout of the crisis has been several complex water-sharing disputes involving a swathe of basin states of the Cauvery, Krishna, Godavari, Mandovi, Narmada, Ravi, Beas and Vansadhara rivers. Despite the Interstate River Water Disputes Act, 1956, the majority of disputes simmer under five tribunals. The government is now proposing a single tribunal for all water issues due to the increasing costs of maintaining each tribunal. The National River-Linking Project (NRLP) has been an on-again, off-again scheme raising impassioned debate on its pros and cons, with the latest twist being a Supreme Court directive to complete the massive water transfer project by Proponents argue that the project needs to add hydropower to the grid, mitigate floods in eastern India, and supply much-needed water to western and southern India. Opponents point to huge costs, already insufficient water flows in major river basins due to the proliferation of dams, the vulnerability of river ecosystems and negative socioeconomic impacts such as community displacement. PIC: F. Fiondella (IRI/CCAFS) A tripling of population from 1951 to 2010 has decreased the per capita availability of water from 5,177 cubic meters per year in 1951 to 1,588 cubic meters per year in According to data collected by the Central Water Commission from 371 stations between 2001 and 2011, nearly all rivers in India are unsuitable for human use. According to the Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General for 2011, barely 10% of the wastewater generated in India is treated. By 2050, sewage from large- and medium-sized cities is expected to more than triple. The controversial NRLP envisions bringing water to dry western areas through 16 river links in the Himalayan basins and 14 in the peninsular basins. A main benefit of this would be to add 34 million hectares of irrigated cropland. RIVERS RIVERS

12 Researched and written by Keya Acharya Editors: Jeff Smith and Mahen Chandrasoma Cover center image: P. Casier (CCAFS/CGIAR)

13 New Delhi Office, India 2nd Floor, CG Block C NASC Complex, DPS Marg, Pusa Opp Todapur, New Delhi , India Tel: , & Fax: iwmi-delhi@cgiar.org