Politics

INITTIATION OF THE ARAGALAYA AND $4b COMES AT A COST

Explosive water conflicts

Chennai, the capital of Tamil Nadu state, is the first major city in India to go dry, causing innumerable problems for its 11 million residents. The neighboring state of Karnataka is now officially the most arid state in India and faces myriad challenges, especially in rural communities.

Because of water shortages, both Karnataka and Tamil Nadu are in conflict with each other – a water war of sorts. One recent headline in the Indian press reads: Cauvery’s battle for survival amid TN, Karnataka water sharing dispute.” No resolution is in sight soon. (Cauvery is a river that runs through the two states.)

India faces a severe water crisis, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi knows it. It represents such an existential threat to stability across the subcontinent that orderly governance and sustainable economic development are in jeopardy if the government fails to address the problem adequately. 

Modi has been stumping for water” for years. He, together with the Rajya Sabha (upper house of Parliament) and Lok Sabha (lower house), and the people, need to sort out the mess; the plight of a couple hundred million thirsty people is serious business. 

In early October, the PM announced the Jal Jeevan Mission, an effort not only to get all the people to understand the severity of the problem” but to enlist their support in conservation. This decentralized approach to water management will help relieve pressure on water resources. 

The Jal Jeevan Mission is the latest in a long series of efforts by India to improve its management of water resources, especially rainwater and aquifers, as well as methods of collection, storage, transmission, leakage prevention, usage, and minimization of pollution. No small task. 

A huge problem

The magnitude of the problem has been known for years. The conclusions of the 2018 Composite Water Management Index by NITI Aayog, India’s premier government think tank, were alarming: India [was] placed at 120th amongst 122 countries in the water quality index, with nearly 70% of water being contaminated.”

By most credible accounts, that is, by those basing their studies on science rather than trying to cash in” on the crisis, the water problem continues to get worse. 

India is suffering from the worst water crisis in its history and millions of lives and livelihoods are under threat. Currently, 600 million Indians face high to extreme water stress and about 2 lakh [200 thousand] people die every year due to inadequate access to safe water. The crisis is only going to get worse.” Shocking. 

NITI Aayog’s 2019 Composite Water Management Index is also unequivocal: As the water crisis worsens, production capacity utilization and new investments in capacity may both decline, threatening the livelihoods of millions, and commodity prices could rise steeply for consumers due to production shortages.” 

Modi fully grasps the significance of the problem: India’s development and self-reliance is dependent on water security and water connectivity.… If the country is not concerned about water preservation and does not prevent the wastage of water, the situation will deteriorate in the coming decades. It is our responsibility that the water given to us by our ancestors should be made available for our future generations.”

The Washington-based Woodrow Wilson Center recently presented insightful observations on water-energy-food confrontations in India.

The consequences of overdrawing groundwater in most Indian cities include increased water toxicity, challenges to irrigation, depletion of nearby lakes and rivers, and water rationing. India draws the most groundwater in the world, with more than 27 million borewells in existence, and more are being drilled daily, further depleting over-stressed groundwater levels.

As underscored in the 2019 Index, In fact, the unchecked extraction of groundwater by farmers is driving the country’s groundwater crisis, with 61% of wells declining in levels due to extraction rates exceeding recharge rates.” The situation has become so dire that there are districts calling for bans on borewell drilling.

With less than 5% of the globe’s fresh water and more than a billion people, Indians suck out of the ground more water than any other country in the world, 90% of which is used for farming. Is India’s uprising in the agricultural sector a consequence of the water crisis?