Free supply a cause of acute water stress

Free supply a cause of acute water stress

The UN-designated World Water Week is an occasion to focus attention on pressing water-related policy challenges today. The NITI Aayog’s latest composite water management index reiterates flagrant inefficiency in water usage nationally. The report highlights the fact that thoroughly suboptimal cropping patterns across regions is the root cause of rising water stress, including rapid depletion of groundwater levels.

The political executive needs to put in place forward-looking norms to better manage our water resources. Sustainability needs to be the watchword. Groundwater provides nearly twothirds of irrigation needs and meets 80% of India’s drinking water requirements, even as over half the groundwater wells reveal fast-falling water tables. What’s ‘alarming’ is that the vast bulk of water used in paddy irrigation in Punjab is drawn from groundwater sources. In drier Maharashtra, a water-guzzling crop like sugarcane is intensively grown even as parts of the state face a ‘severe water crisis’. An estimated 30% of the land nationwide is either degraded or faces desertification, largely due to poor water management and loss of vegetation cover. Aligning cropping patters with agro-climatic zones is crucial. The policy of gratis, or heavily subsidised supply of inputs, needs to be dumped.

The proper management of waste water also calls for prompt policy action. Much of the waste water in urban areas is simply discharged untreated, leave alone recycled. The report mentions that five of the world’s 20 largest cities under water stress are in India, with Delhi second on the list. It is imperative to put paid to gross wastage by levying reasonable user charges to boost productivity of water usage in industrial units, agriculture and piped water supply as well.