India must not look at its water crisis in isolation

By Aditi Mukherji

This was a rough monsoon — a delayed start in many parts of India, and then a deluge — leading to both devastating droughts and floods, so much so that almost every other day, we read news about parched cities, and submerged villages. Those of us who work on water issues in India understand that droughts and floods are a manifestation of the same malaise — decades of mismanagement of our land, water and ecosystems due to outdated and misinformed policies. The effects of these are now being compounded due to climate change. As a scientist, I often get asked how much of our water woes are due to climate change.

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India’s water woes, though, stem largely from its over-dependence on groundwater, and here, the climate links are less pronounced because underground aquifers take much longer to react to changes in temperature and rainfall. India is the world’s largest user of groundwater, extracting 250 cubic km of groundwater annually, and has 20 million wells and tube wells. Most of our cities depend on groundwater, and our irrigation is overwhelmingly groundwater dependent. The risk of linking our water crisis to climate change is that policymakers can throw their hands up and say that there is little that they can do. And that’s a dangerous road, because, so much of our water crisis originates from misplaced policies.

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The water crisis in rural India is in some ways harder (but not impossible) to tackle — mostly because it is a policy- induced crisis dating back to the days of the Green Revolution, when food security for millions was the policy priority. The Green Revolution needed three inputs — high yielding varieties of seeds, intensive use of chemical fertilizers and irrigation. Groundwater provided the much-needed intensive irrigation and energy subsidies (including free electricity) were provided for irrigation intensification. Another reason for these input subsidies was to keep food prices low for a largely poor urban population. These policies continue, even though the purchasing power of urban population has improved and our farmers grow more food than ever (food which often rots in godowns). Farmers get a procurement price that considers the cost of subsidised inputs — and asking them to pay, say, full price for electricity, without increasing the procurement prices of food grains that they grow, will see them further immersed in distress. Another perverse part of our entire water-energy-food nexus is that farmers are over-extracting groundwater to grow water-intensive, but nutritionally poorer, food crops such as rice, wheat and sugarcane. This, while, low water consuming and nutritious crops such as sorghum, millets are being completely neglected. Policies for reducing water distress in agriculture have to focus on all fronts — ensuring that our food procurement policies are revised to incentivise low-water consuming crops, that our agricultural energy policies are tweaked to provide smarter incentives for lower groundwater extraction, and that our water policies encourage decentralised solutions like water harvesting and water-efficient agriculture.

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