India’s Water Futures

Emergent Ideas and Pathways

K. J. Joy, S. Janakarajan

• Publisher: Routledge India
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9780367197148
• eBook ISBN: 9780429752254
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Asian Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

When it comes to water, we flush and forget. We use, abuse and almost never recycle.

Water sector in India, since the 1990s, has seen some new ideas formalised legally and institutionally, while others are still emerging and evolving. Confronting the reality of current water management strategies, this volume discusses the state of the Indian water sector to uncover solutions that can address the imminent water crises.

This book:

• Analyses the growing water insecurity, increase in demand, inefficiency in water use, and growing inequalities in accessing clean water;
• Sheds light on water footprint in agricultural, industrial and urban use, pressures on river basin management, depleting groundwater resources, patterns of droughts and floods, watershed based development and waste water and sanitation management;
• Examines water conflicts, lack of participatory governance mechanisms, and suggests an alternative framework for water regulation and conflict transformation;
• Highlights the relationship between gender discourse and water governance;
• Presents an alternative agenda for water sector reforms.

This volume, with hopes for a more water secure future, will interest scholars and researchers of development studies, environment studies, public policy, political studies, political sociology, and, NGOs, media and think tanks working in this area.

1 Introduction India’s water futures

Emergent ideas and pathways

K. J. Joy and S. Janakarajan

Introduction

A lot has been written about the multi-faceted crisis in the water sector in India. This book is not primarily about the crisis; nor does it offer a comprehensive critique of the water sector by analysing its various problems.¹ Instead, the book posits that, along with the crisis, there is a wide range of changes taking place – changes in mindsets and worldviews, practices, polices, legal regimes and institutions around water that need engagement. Some of these changes are formalized legally and institutionally; some others are still fluid, discussed and debated, experimented with and yet to find political commitment. In a sense, they are still ‘work-in-progress’ or ‘emergent’ ideas and pathways of change. They are ‘emergent’ because they are still flexible and fluid, have not found political commitment, are not formalized legally or otherwise and, at the same time, offer freedom to make changes as part of the process itself. This book is primarily about these ideas and pathways. The various chapters in the book dealing with different aspects of water offer pointers on how to move forward in each of these aspects. The book is also an effort to recognize and appreciate the contribution made by late Prof. Ramaswamy R. Iyer (Prof. Iyer henceforth) to the changing water sector discourse in India.

This introductory chapter starts with a brief discussion on the globally increased political sensitivity around water, as this could be seen as a first step in the changes taking place in the water sector. Then it moves to a discussion about the broad changes taking place in the Indian water sector. The third section is a brief note on Prof. Iyer and his contribution in changing the water sector discourse in India. The fourth and the final (and more substantial) section discusses the overall coverage of the book by talking about the issues the various chapters in the book engage with and the critical insights emanating from each of them.

Increased global sensitivity

Water has become one of the most important items of agenda for discussion across governments the world over. The subject has become even more critical ever since the debate over global warming induced climate change turned into a hot subject, cutting across national and disciplinary boundaries. There are serious deliberations on issues relating to glacier melting, extreme weather events, water security, food security, ecological and environmental security, rapid urbanization, commercialization of water utilities, contestations and conflicts and so on. In all these debates, water security takes centre stage. Global events such as the World Water Forum and the Stockholm World Water Week have been emphasizing the need for putting water on a high political agenda. These international forums have been striving to elicit a political commitment from the governments across the world for better water governance, conservation, civil society participation, building partnerships and, most of all, for global mutual collaboration to address all water-related concerns.

The Ministerial Statements from the different World Water Forums reflect, at least on paper, the political commitments of various governments in relation to water.

We … are determined to address the global challenges related to water within the context of sustainable development. We, therefore: Reaffirm the prior commitments made by national governments to achieve the internationally agreed upon goals on water and sanitation, including those in Agenda 21 and the Johannesburg Plan of implementation, and acknowledge the decisions of the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development (UNCSD), the multilateral agreements relevant to water, water use, sanitation and health.²

We reaffirm that water is at the core of sustainable development and support the inclusion of one dedicated water goal and water-related targets in the Post-2015 Development Agenda. We note that Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) and its balanced relation with food and energy is important to effectively cope with increasing food and energy requirements towards sustainable development…. We reaffirm our commitment to the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation and ensuring progressive access to water and sanitation for all…. We stress that water is one of the major issues in tackling climate change.³

Though there is a big gap between the international commitments and actual practice, they do serve as pegs to affix our own concerns in the water sector and hold the respective governments accountable to honour the commitments they have made in international forums.

Water sector in India: issues, concerns and changes

Issues and concerns

Many of these issues, as reflected in the global discourse discussed earlier, are highly relevant to India. Of course, India has its own specific issues too. Indeed, the biggest concerns of the Indian economy, polity and society include these: falling or stagnant agricultural growth and the emerging food security complications, rapid industrialization and urbanization, rural – urban migration, ecological and environmental insecurity and growing inequities. The direct impact of these changes is the escalating demand for water for non-agricultural uses, especially industrial and urban uses. As a consequence, millions of gallons of potable water are transferred from rural to urban areas every day and water is getting increasingly (re)allocated from agriculture to industries and urban areas (Joy et al. 2014). For example, in Maharashtra, over six to seven years, starting from 2003, nearly 1500 mm³ of water has been re-allocated from agriculture to urban and industrial uses (Prayas 2010). This is just one example. This type of water (re)allocation is leading to increased inter-sectoral conflicts (Joy et al. 2008; Joy and Paranjape 2009). The preoccupation with 8–10 per cent growth through the industrial route is going to put enormous pressures on freshwater. The biggest challenge for India in the days to come is how it is going to manage the growing competing demands for water from different sectors.

Rising urban and industrial water needs also contribute to enormous pollution load. The Indian hydrocracy at best engages in fresh-water management (read, water supply augmentation measures) but never ever engages seriously with issues concerning wastewater or in what form and shape the ‘return flows’ come back into the system. Indeed, in many developed countries equal, if not more, importance is given to wastewater management strategies. As a result of neglect of such an important issue, water pollution in India has become the most serious concern. The wastewater generated through urban sewage and industrial effluents have been conveniently discharged into the sea, freshwater bodies, low-lying lands, rivers and streams, impacting both surface and groundwater (CSE 2012).

The other important issues include inefficient use of water, dying of rivers due to pollution load as well as damming and diversions, depleting groundwater conditions and lack of groundwater regulation, lack of protected drinking water supply and sanitation facility for a vast majority, and unsustainable and unprofitable agriculture.

It is also important that these challenges are not discussed in isolation. The complexities of Indian socio-economic, political and cultural issues make things shoddier. What we see today in India is persisting poverty, growing inequality and deprivation, widespread farmers’ suicides, lack of access to basic needs such as food, water, housing and health care, fractured institutions, competitive populism, myopic and sectoral approach for growth and development, lack of transparency, lack of information flow, lack of scientific data generation and dissemination, inadequate and unscientific planning, rapid, uncontrolled and unplanned urbanization, conversion of rural poverty into urban poverty and so forth.

The climate change threat is looming large and needs to be handled in this overall vulnerable situation in the country. The rural economy (and the Indian economy is predominantly rural) contributes to livelihoods of a vast majority. The Indian rural poor who depend upon subsistence farming are more vulnerable due to climatological factors. As a result of climate change, freshwater availability is expected to be more seasonal since roughly 75 per cent of the annual water supply is realized through the monsoon across India. It is feared that due to the fast melting of the Himalayan glaciers, the present perennial rivers of India such as the Indus, the Ganges and the Brahmaputra are quite likely to become seasonal rivers. Salt water intrusion and increasing salinity in coastal water bodies, such as backwater canals and estuaries, are going to be a serious problem in the near future. It is also anticipated that all deltas are going to become more vulnerable due to a lack of sediment flow, sea-water intrusion and the overall sea-level rise. This is going to result in a huge food security problem as well as a livelihood security problem across India.

Changing water sector discourse in India⁴

The water sector discourse has been drastically changing in India, or, for that matter, the world over, since the early 1990s. One could say that the first round of changes took place roughly between 1990 and 2005.⁵ Many new concepts, terminologies and governance structures have entered the discourse. Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) finds a mention in all policy documents. Participatory Irrigation Management (PIM) through Water Users’ Associations (WUAs) is legally mandatory in any state in India. River basin organizations, multi-stakeholder platforms and processes, and independent regulatory bodies are part of the larger institutional design for water governance in India.

As for the state, it has moved from the earlier largely techno-centric model to approaching the crisis from an economic and institutional perspective. After the Dublin Principles of 1992 (ICWE 1992), the discourse around water has changed. Water is increasingly seen as an economic good. Clearly, the thrust, for a certain period, moved away from investing in infrastructure to managing the resource through smart governance. Institutions and pricing thereby became the keywords with the state, changing its role from one of service provider to one of regulator.⁶ The state has proactively focused on taking steps, at least in some cases at the instance of multilateral donors,⁷ to put forth policies, laws and rules and for the supposedly better management of ‘scarce’ water. Formulation of new laws and policies, institutional reforms, creation of water entitlements and building partnerships between users, private interests and the state have been some of the important aspects of the water sector reform package of the state.

Earlier, water provisioning was in the hands of state agencies/organizations. This has been changing since the 1990s. Now the emphasis is on public-private partnerships. There is an increasing role for private service providers in both drinking water and irrigation water management. There is also a move to make water rights tradable, the state of Maharashtra being an example of this. The policy push towards economic pricing of water stems from a shift in the worldview around water – a shift from water being primarily a ‘social good’ to an ‘economic good’.

Water transfers – both real and virtual – are taking different shapes and forms. For example, water is getting transferred from low value food crops (in economic terms) to higher value commercial crops, or other higher priority sectors (industries, cities). From the supermarkets of developed countries, one can buy grapes cultivated in the water-scarce regions of Maharashtra (Larrington-Spencer 2014, as quoted in Zwarteveen 2015) and bananas grown on the desert coast of Peru.⁸ Water has already been brought under the purview of global trade by its inclusion in the General Agreement on Trade and Services (GATS). All these and many other developments in the water sector (and also those outside it) seem to indicate that the water sector has been impacted significantly by the Liberalization, Privatization and Globalization (LPG) regime unleashed in the country since the early 1990s.

Within India, Maharashtra seems to be leading the pack in ushering in most of these reforms. The policy initiatives in Maharashtra in the early 2000s – the Maharashtra State Water Policy (2003), the Maharashtra Management of Irrigation System by Farmers Act (2005) and the Maharashtra Water Resources Regulatory Authority Act (2005) – all reflect this. In fact, the timing of these reforms makes the motivation of these policy initiatives suspect. The reforms have coincided with the huge loan that the government of Maharashtra has taken from the World Bank as part of its irrigation sector reforms – a loan of US$325 million to assist the implementation of the Maharashtra Water Sector Improvement Project. The World Bank has hailed the reforms that have been unleashed in Maharashtra as exemplary, especially fixing entitlements, appointing independent water regulatory authorities and so on (Brisco and Malik 2006).⁹

Over the last 20–30 years, efforts have also emerged from within civil society (including the academia), challenging the dominant water paradigm and creatively engaging with and responding to the challenges posed by both the crisis and the changes that are taking place (as part of the reform process). Alternative strategies are being put forward that focus more on the sustainable and equitable use and democratic governance of water. The innumerable struggles against dams (against displacement and submergence), mass mobilizations around equitable water distribution, innovative experiences in Participatory Irrigation Management (PIM) that go beyond efficiency and address concerns of equity, sustainability and democratization, struggles against water privatization of various types, multi-stakeholder platforms and processes to resolve conflicts around water pollution, large number of successful watershed development experiences throughout the country, struggles by the farmers against water being increasingly taken over by industries and cities, and many such positive experiences are all part of the efforts by non-state actors to find answers to the multi-faceted and multi-tiered water crisis.

One could say that the i...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Foreword
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction: India’s water futures: emergent ideas and pathways
• 2 Water resource development in India: achievements, shortcomings and remedial measures
• 3 Managing river basins: re-examining the biophysical basis
• 4 Changing land use, agrarian context and rural transformation: implications for watershed development
• 5 Environmental flows in the Indian context: prospects and challenges
• 6 Changing water use practices of the urban middle class in India: insights from Metropolitan Calcutta
• 7 The centralized approach to wastewater management and implications for sanitation governance: an analysis of the intent and practice of the national urban sanitation policy in India
• 8 Canal irrigation performance and impacts: applying contingency theory to irrigation management in India
• 9 Out of balance: agricultural growth and groundwater depletion in two backward states of India
• 10 Reducing water for agriculture for improving productivity: adapting and up-scaling innovative approaches
• 11 Gender and water: why we need alternatives to alternative discourses
• 12 Inter-state water conflicts and linguistic identity in India: The case of the Cauvery
• 13 Dams and environmental clearances: learnings and way forward
• 14 Rationale for independent regulatory agency for water in India: reconceptualizing credible commitment
• 15 Reforming India’s water sector: which way forward?
• List of contributors
• Index