THE CONTEXT: India holds only 4 per cent of global freshwater but supports 18 per cent of the world’s population. The Composite Water Management Index (CWMI-I) estimated that 600 million citizens already face “high to extreme” water stress, and demand could double by 2030.
THE BACKGROUND- FROM ABUNDANCE TO DEFICIT:
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- Pre-Independence canal networks created a psychological illusion of limitless water. Post-Green Revolution subsidies (free power, assured procurement) locked farmers into rice–wheat monoculture, accelerating groundwater extraction; 256 districts now record a “stage of extraction” exceeding annual recharge.
DRIVERS OF CRISIS:
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- Climatic Volatility: A Council on Energy, Environment and Water study found 55 per cent of tehsils experienced ≥10 per cent increase in heavy rainfall (2012-22), while 48 per cent of land shows declining soil moisture.
- Groundwater Dependency: Sixty-per-cent of irrigation and 85 per cent of rural drinking water depend on aquifers; extraction rate is 60.4 per cent nationwide.
- Quality Degradation: Nitrate exceeds safe limits in 19.8 per cent of samples; arsenic in 3.1 per cent; fluoride in 9.04 per cent.
- Institutional Fragmentation: Eight Union ministries and >10 sectoral schemes operate with overlapping mandates, inhibiting “single-window hydrology”.
- Financing Asymmetry: Adaptation outlay (₹37,000 crore in 2024-25) remains one-eighth of mitigation spending, despite water being climate’s “first shock-vector.”
GLOBAL BEST PRACTICES:
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- Israel: National metering plus compulsory micro-irrigation slashed agricultural withdrawals by 30 per cent.
- Singapore: Four-Tap strategy (imported water, desalination, giant reservoirs, NEWater) closes 80 per cent of urban water loop.
- Chile/Peru: Water-rights markets crowd-in private finance; lessons for India’s GCP.
- Australia’s Murray-Darling Basin Plan: Cap-and-trade among states—a template for inter-state aquifers.
SECTORAL IMPACTS:
| SECTOR | ILLUSTRATIVE EVIDENCE |
|---|---|
| Agriculture | A 100 mm rainfall deficit lowers kharif incomes by 15 per cent; only 22 per cent of irrigated land uses micro-irrigation, despite 55 per cent water savings potential. |
| Urban Settlements | Twenty-one cities, including Bengaluru and Chennai, risk aquifer exhaustion by 2030 (NITI Aayog). |
| Public Health | Contaminated water causes an estimated two lakh deaths annually; fluoride and arsenic affect 230 million people. |
| Industry & Power | Thermal power plants lose ≈5 billion kilowatt-hours annually to water shortages, inflating cost of electricity. |
POLICY & GOVERNANCE LANDSCAPE:
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- Constitutional Matrix: Water is in State List but Article 262 empowers Parliament to adjudicate inter-state disputes.
- National Water Policy (2023 draft): Advocates water pricing, treated wastewater reuse, and climate-proof infrastructure, yet is non-statutory.
- Bureau of Water Use Efficiency (BWUE, 2022): Created under National Water Mission to deliver the 20 per cent efficiency goal by 2027.
- Flagship Schemes
- Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM): Tap water to 15.44 crore rural households; 79.7 per cent coverage as on February 2025.
- Atal Bhujal Yojana (ABY): Community aquifer management across 8,000-gram panchayats; Uttar Pradesh already lowered “over-exploited” blocks from 82 to 50.
- Dam Rehabilitation & Improvement Project-II (DRIP-2): Modernises 300 large dams with SCADA and early-warning systems.
- Green Credit Programme (GCP, 2023): Monetises recharge structures and wetland restoration through tradable certificates.
THE ISSUES:
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- Hydro-Federalism Gridlock: Tribunal awards (e.g., Mahadayi) languish for decades, aggravating regional animosities.
- Data Opacity: Only 45 per cent of basins have real-time gauges; disparate formats impede India-WRIS integration.
- Quality Blind-spot: Water governance tilts toward quantity; contamination indices rarely drive allocation.
- Gendered Inequity: Women shoulder 72 billion person-hours annually in fetching water yet hold <20 per cent seats in Water User Associations.
- Finance & Tariff Risk: Urban utilities recover barely 60 per cent of operational expenditure, discouraging private participation.
- Financing Gap: Adaptation finance was ₹37,000 crore (≈₹260 per capita) in 2019-20 versus ₹3,09,000 crore for mitigation—ratio 1: 8.
- Demand‐Side Myopia: Subsidies for rice & sugarcane override price signals; Minimum Support Price acts as a “virtual water” export incentive.
THE WAY FORWARD:
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- Codify a National Water Framework Act: Transform the 2016 draft into binding law to harmonise State statutes and embed “right-to-water” principles.
- Aquifer-Level Budgeting: Deploy Internet-of-Things sensors for real-time abstraction caps; publish dashboards on India-WRIS for social audit.
- Smart Subsidy Reform: Replace blanket free power with Direct Benefit Transfer linked to metered kilowatt-hours, protecting smallholders via de-minimis thresholds.
- MSP 2.0 for Water-Smart Crops: Tie procurement bonuses to water-productivity scores, nudging ten million hectares towards millets and pulses by 2030.
- Scale Micro-Irrigation: Integrate drip subsidies with satellite-based evapotranspiration alerts to cut on-farm use by 20 billion cubic metres annually.
- Bankable Urban Utilities: Ring-fence user charges in escrow accounts; access pooled municipal bonds to reduce non-revenue water below 15 per cent.
- Dam Safety & Dynamic Flood Cushioning: Fast-track DRIP-II retrofits and adopt reservoir re-operation algorithms that free 12 billion cubic metres of flood-storage space.
- Wetland & Floodplain Restoration: Use Green Credit certificates to monetise ecosystem services, creating a ₹10,000 crore blue-green asset class.
- Gender-Responsive Water Governance: Statutorily mandate 50 per cent representation of women in Water User Associations; evidence shows 25 per cent higher compliance.
- Blended Finance “Hydro-Bonds”: Leverage CSR and climate bonds to mobilise private capital; target 15 per cent private share in the ₹6.7 trillion water-financing gap.
THE CONCLUSION:
Water scarcity is no longer a cyclical hardship but a structural chokepoint to India’s demographic dividend. Water is the bloodstream of India’s development model. Delaying reform risks a “hydrological poverty trap”; acting now can turn scarcity into a driver of innovation and equity.
UPSC PAST YEAR QUESTION:
Q. Suggest measures to improve water storage and irrigation system to make its judicious use under depleting scenario. 2020
MAINS PRACTICE QUESTION:
Q. India’s water crisis stems less from hydrological limits than from governance deficits. Discuss.
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