Solutions to water scarcity lie outside the water sector: Dr Tushaar Shah

Residents get their containers filled with drinking water from a municipal water tanker at a slum in Kolkata, India, March 22, 2022. REUTERS/Rupak De Chowdhuri - RC2C7T9JM34Z

His is one that goes against the popular opinion that says conserve water and the country will have enough for everyone. Economist and public policy expert Dr Tushaar Shah believes the ultimate solution to India’s water crisis is economic prosperity and people being able to pay for better water services. Conservation is great to relieve the pain in the intermediate term, but it isn't enough to resolve the crisis.

The Scientist Emeritus at the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) and the former director of the Institute of Rural Management at Anand (IRMA), who was called as an advisor to Niti Ayog, spoke to Moneycontrol around World Water Day, and explained why doomsday predictions should be taken with a pinch of salt and why the water crisis remains largely invisible.

Despite the severity of the water crisis, why is there no sense of urgency around it in India? 

One important reason is that we exploit groundwater largely, and groundwater (depletion) is harder to understand. We don’t know what is happening under the ground, and that is an important part of the problem. Only when people can’t access groundwater, like when there is a severe drought, it (the depletion) is recognised as a crisis. So, it is not a permanent problem, and it is only felt in a particular point in time.

Second, not everybody feels the challenge. It’s usually the poorest and those who live in remote locations who experience water stress. Those are the people who have the least resources and the voice to respond. The rich and the well off never really get affected by water stress.

There are countries such as Israel and Singapore that have less water than we have. They don’t worry about a water crisis because they have access to enough resources, knowledge and technology to solve their problem. So partly, it’s also a problem of economics. We have a water crisis partly because we are poor. Not everybody is able to afford water security.

Also read: Revive traditional water systems to avert a water crisis

How can being a richer country help?

One of the reasons why we have water stress is that agriculture supports the livelihoods of a larger number of people than it can afford to do. Most people are doing agriculture not by choice but because the economy has not been able to generate other jobs for them. 

So, over 15-20-25 years, as our economy grows, I would expect more and more people to shift out of agriculture to the non-farm sectors. Once that happens, then there will be no need to take three crops every year. Otherwise, all farmers will have to do more intensive agriculture (which consumes a lot of water) simply because he/she has to sustain a family of five or six on a postage-stamp-size land parcel.

A large part of the crisis is because of this dependence on agriculture. So, eventually, no matter how much we invest in infrastructure and dams and canals and so on and so forth, the problem will not go away unless you are able to reduce the pressure on the demand side. You must reduce the population pressure on agriculture.

What about the groundwater-replenishment interventions, such as reviving old tanks and implementing rainwater harvesting systems? Won’t they be effective enough to counter this crisis?

They certainly would (for the medium term). Gujarat is a good example. Gujarat, along with Rajasthan, has been a drought-prone area. In the early nineties, the government and the people decided to turn their attention to better management of water resources. They took responsibility to improve groundwater storage. People such as Pandurang Shastri Athavale came forward and hundreds of check dams were built in Saurashtra and Gujarat. Initially people laughed at it, saying what can these small dams do. But you build them in large numbers and all over the landscape, and you find that a good monsoon improves water storage radically. Other states such as Maharashtra and Telangana are following their example. So this is an effective solution, but not for the long run. 

In the long run, shifting people out of agriculture is the answer to our water crisis. This will happen only as a result of economic development.

There are three levels of water management. One is managing the risk associated with the water resource, the second is with the infrastructure and the third is with the service/delivery. We have done something, not a great deal, at managing water as a resource but the area of concern would be the infrastructure and delivery.

How can we improve that?

Amsterdam is often cited as the world’s best water supply and sanitation service. If you look how much a consumer or citizen pays for that, it is higher than the income of a household in Ahmedabad. Here the average collection per household is around Rs 30 per month. We don’t pay anything for water. That is also partly why we have water scarcity. 

Solutions to water scarcity lie outside the water sector. For example, if a municipal commissioner were asked to improve sanitation or storage systems, then he/she may have to increase water tariffs to fund this. Then it will become a political economy problem. The chief minister will call and ask the commissioner to stop it immediately.

So the solution ultimately is that the standard of living and incomes have to improve and people will be willing to pay for better services, and they will demand that from municipalities and their governments.

Also read: Jal Jeevan Mission delivers additional 6 crore tap-water connections

How far do you think the Jal Shakti Ministry can help?

One thing is that no previous government has put as much effort and resources in solving the water and sanitation problem as the present government. I think it is partly from Mr. Modi’s experience in Gujarat. But, even if the government were to have the noblest of intentions, ultimately, it can just build and hand them over. Ultimately, what happens to the delivery infrastructure will depend on the local dynamics.

The Jal Shakti Ministry aims to build the system and reach tap water to all households. After that it will withdraw, after maybe giving some training in capacity building. But ultimately, what will happen to the systems over time will depend on the state government, local administrations or panchayats and so on. So, I don’t think the Jal Shakti Ministry can do very much to keep the systems running.

In the sixties and seventies, the governments had massively invested in multi-village piped water supply systems. They worked for months and some even more than a year, but when there was even a small problem, it was never fixed and the whole system became non-operational. The people who were the beneficiaries either didn’t care enough to raise their voices against it nor did they care enough to use their resources to have the issue fixed. 

There were predictions made a few years ago of cities such as Bengaluru and New Delhi running out of water by 2020. But life seems to go on. So are these predictions still valid?

These kinds of predictions have been made even earlier, such as in the eighties when American researchers had said that unless India learns to manage its groundwater use, the food basket is at risk and so on. But whenever a society experiences the pain of water shortage, the government and the people realise there they have to respond to it. Society does not remain static. It responds with different degrees of effectiveness. These predictions assume that the society will not respond, and yes, if the society does not respond then the situation will be dire. 

I do not see a time when parts of India will run out of water for a long period of time. 

Usually, people working in the water sector are appalled by the lack of importance given to the crisis by the government. So they find inventive ways of building pressure on the policymakers whenever they can. 

What about the prediction that the water crisis will reduce the country’s GDP growth rate by 6 per cent?

I don’t know how these calculations were made. I also don’t believe such calculations are credible. Water scarcity affects the poorest section of the society and their relationship with the GDP is very weak. The links between water scarcity and economic growth are more complex than direct conversion into statements such as water scarcity weakening GDP growth and so on.