Let There Be Water

India’s cities are on the frontline of the ‘worst water crisis in its history’. 21 Cities including Delhi and Bengaluru will run out of groundwater in the next two years. Many cities in India have witnessed desperate measures of water management such as stationing of armed guards at water reservoirs to prevent theft of water and sending ‘water trains’ to affected areas. The only way to address the problem is to optimise utilization of water resources, promote water conservation and stop polluting water bodies. Do municipal bodies and other tiers of governments have a plan? A look within the deepening water crisis in Indian cities…

India is in the public eye since it announced its plan to build 100 Smart Cities. The idea of smart cities is not uniform world over. In the context of India, the government is transforming the selected thriving cities and improving the way basic services like water supply, electricity, sanitation services are provided to their citizens. It has ‘area-based development’ projects and ‘pan-city development’ projects and it is interesting to note that providing 24×7 water supply to their citizens is on the agenda of almost every city under pan-city projects. It is not strange because the quality of water supply in Indian cities has remained poor despite several projects and programs initiated in the past. The recently launched report of NITI Aayog ‘Composite Water Management Index-2018’ highlights the severity of the water crisis. In the face of such crisis, water management in India requires major overhauling and urban planners need to build water-wise cities before smart cities.
Any kind of development is very much dependent on the availability of water; whether it is the day-to-day lives of citizens, industrial operations or commercial activities. All our plans will fall flat if we do not have enough water to support our urban operations.
The report says, as many as 21 cities of the country including Delhi, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad and Jaipur will run out of groundwater in the next two years because’critical groundwater resources–which account for 40 per cent of our water supply–are depleting at unsustainable rates’.By 2030, the nation will have access to half the water it needs. It further says, when water is available, it is likely to be contaminated (up to 70 per cent of our water supply), resulting in nearly 200,000 deaths each year.
Amitabh Kant, CEO of NITI Aayog, says in the report, “It’s a matter of concern that 600 million people in India face high to extreme water stress in the country. About three-fourth of the households in the country do not have drinking water at their premise. With nearly 70 per cent of water being contaminated, India is placed at 120th amongst 122 countries in the water quality index. It’s a fact that water is a State subject and its optimal utilization and management lies predominantly within the domain of the States. This index is an attempt to budge States and UTs towards efficient and optimal utilization of water and recycling thereof with a sense of urgency.”
The Index comprises nine themes (each having an attached weight)— source augmentation and restoration of water bodies (5) source augmentation-groundwater (15), major and medium irrigation (15), watershed development (10), participatory irrigation management (10), on-farm water use (10), rural water supply (10) and urban water supply and sanitation (10), and policy and governance (15). Since India did not have adequate information on the status of different areas of water management, this report will surely help in getting adequate data for our policymakers to focus on the areas which need attention.
Governments and planners need to find ways to augment the available water resources by using advanced technologies such as desalination of sea water, wastewater recycling, promoting rainwater harvesting, and building an efficient stormwater drainage system in cities.

The rationing of water is still applicable in the city of Cape Town. The limit for domestic usage was set to 50 litres per day per person in February this year. Even the bathrooms in hotels, malls and other public places switched-off their taps and started using waterless hand sanitizers. The message above a water tap reads: “Be Wise, Hand Sanitise. Due to water restrictions, this tap has been switched off. Please make use of waterless hand sanitizer.” This is just one of many examples of restriction on use of water. People are experiencing a new relationship with water

The Big Problem
Water covers almost 70 per cent surface of the Earth but drinking water is not as plentiful as we may think. Just
3 per cent of it is fresh or say drinkable.Water scarcity already affects four out of every 10 people in the world. The situation is worsening in almost every country.According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, excluding countries that it does not have data for, less than five percent of the world’s population is living in a country that has more water today than it did 20 years ago. Everyone else is living in a country that has less water today. And nearly one out of three are living in a country that is facing a
water crisis.
When United Nations came up with the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), one of the sub-goals Goal 6 talks about drinking water quality saying – “By 2030, improve water quality by reducing pollution, eliminating dumping and minimising release of hazardous chemicals and materials, halving the proportion of untreated wastewater and substantially increasing recycling and safe reuse globally.” The world is realising that the water crisis is coming in their way and governments and people need to address it jointly.
In India, the problem is going to get worse in the business-as-usual scenario. As per the report of National Commission for Integrated Water Resource Development of Ministry of Water Resources (MoWR), the water requirement by 2050 in high use scenario is likely to be a milder 1,180 Billion Cubic Metre (BCM), whereas the present-day availability is 695 BCM. The total availability of water possible in country is still lower than this projected demand at 1,137 BCM.
Many countries, especially water-stressed countries around the world, have invented pioneering methods for optimal use and conservation of water resources. Last year in March when Cape Town faced the drought-like situation and had left with just four months of usable water for its residents,it was an alarm for all cities around the world. A similar situation happened in Shimla this summer where people had to wait for hours in queues for a bucket of water. People in these cities did not go about the daily routine as usual. Many of them restricted bathing, watering plants, washing clothes, and even making tea. The rationing of water is still applicable in the city of Cape Town. The limit for domestic usage was set to 50 litres per day per person in February this year. Even the bathrooms in hotels, malls and other public places switched-off their taps and started using waterless hand sanitizers. The message above a water tap reads: “Be Wise, Hand Sanitise. Due to water restrictions, this tap has been switched off. Please make use of waterless hand sanitizer.” This is just one of many examples of restriction on the use of water. People are experiencing a new relationship with water.

As per the report of National Commission for Integrated Water Resource Development of Ministry of Water Resources (MoWR), the water requirement by 2050 in high use scenario is likely to be a milder 1,180 Billion Cubic Metre (BCM), whereas the present-day availability is 695 BCM. The total availability of water possible in the country is still lower than this projected demand at 1,137 BCM

Look beyond borders
What is happening in these water-stressed cities is going to happen in other cities of the world too if urban governments and citizens do not correct the situation collectively. There are a couple of initiatives which can be taken immediately to stop wastage of water. The first one is making people aware that the water crisis is looming large and this is not happening just in some parts of the world. South African and Australian cities had told their citizens through electronic billboards about the available water withthe city when they faceda drought-like situation in the past.
One can find hundreds of examples of potable water being wasted or misused in every city, small town or village of India. In my recent trip to a small town in Western Uttar Pradesh—Barsana, I had found that most of the municipal water supply pipelines had no taps and water was going down the drain after people were done filling their buckets and tanks. Such brazen misuse of water is dangerous. People who still have adequate water supply are taking it for granted and thinking that water will remain available to them forever. Such attitude towards water will seriously jeopardise livesof our coming generations.
The report by NITI Aayog also highlights that the states with abundant water resources don’t focus on taking initiatives to conserve water. For example, Meghalaya occupied the last rank in FY 15-16 and FY 16-17, FY 17-18. The reason is: as a water abundant state receiving one of the highest annual rainfall amounts in the world, the need for water management has never been sharply felt in Meghalaya. To avoid any such situation in the future, water management needs to be strengthened in water-rich states too.
Municipal corporations, councils and village panchayats, which are the closest governments to the people, need to talk to citizens. They need to tell people how important water conservation is for everyone.For this, local governments need to lead from the front. They need to fix water leakages and strengthen their water distribution system using sensor-based technology where any leakage can be checked and fixed in no time. Their efforts should also be to empower people and local communities to save and conserve water.
The examples of successful implementation of conservation and awareness programs abound, especially in water-scarce countries. In Australia, when faced with water scarcity, government not only told them about the crisis upfront but also gave them tips to save water. The citizens reduced the time spent in bathrooms, changed the low water consuming showerheads provided by the local authorities. More than 460,000 showerheads were replaced. And, when the government received comments about showerheads, they worked on the new design. Over 100,000 orders of were made for redesigned water heads. Melbourne succeeded in reducing the water demands per capita by 50 percent. This was a good example of a collaborative initiative of local governments
and citizens.
In the United Arab Emirates, the second-most water-scarce country in the world, the government designed “Business Heroes Toolkit” in 2010. The aim was to motivate and empower businesses to reduce water and energy consumption. The toolkit provided information on how to measure their existing water-consumption levels and it also had tips to help them reduce those levels. Business houses implemented as many water-saving tips as they could in their office space. They replaced their toilet-flushing techniques, taps, showerheads. Many companies eventually reduced their employees’ water consumption by half.
Locals in Namibia, one of the most arid countries in Southern Africa, have been drinking recycled water since 1968. India has a problem here because the nation treats only about 30 percent of its wastewater and reuses only a negligible amount. Another side of the story is that our corporations do not have adequate resources for recycling water to drinking standards. Learning can come from anywhere. We can learn from Namibia too. Israel treats 100 per cent of its municipal wastewater and reuses 95 per cent for agriculture and ecological purposes. Marina Barrage in Singapore, the country where 60 per cent water demand is met by imported water, is another example of how water catchment area can also turn into a tourist attraction.
With sixty percent of the country a desert and despite a rapidly growing population, Israel has emerged as a leader in water management projects. Based on meticulous research and hundreds of interviews, Seth Siegel tells how this all came to be in his book “Let There Be Water: Israel’s Solution for a Water-Starved World”.India has also signed a treaty this year with Israel for technology transfer for effective water management. The recently launched report is a good sign because the government has itself acknowledged the impending water crisis in the country. Now, the government needs to begin empowering municipal authorities and communities and frame water policies for addressing the problem with a new approach.