How India will tackle its water woes amid ‘wash your hands’ directive?

Topics Covered: Disaster and disaster management.

How India will tackle its water woes amid ‘wash your hands’ directive?

What to study?

For Prelims: Per capital availability of water in India, past trends and overview of jal Jeevan mission.

For Mains: Water scarcity in India, causes , impacts and ways to address them.

Why in News?

Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) issued an advisory to state governments asking them to ensure safe drinking water supply and management during the nationwide lockdown that has been extended to May 3.

States have also been asked to send field test kits to villages to conduct periodic testing of water resources, and ensure round the clock vigils to ensure supply.

Why?

Frequent washing of hands with frothing soaps is recognized as the most efficient and effective measure in the listed preventive measures for controlling the spread of the virus.

Why ensuring uninterrupted water supply would be a challenge for many states in India?

Lack of access to clean water itself is an ongoing challenge that the country has been facing for several years.

The average annual per capita water availability fell from 1820 cubic meters assessed in 2001 to to 1545 cubic meters in 2011, and could reduce further to 1341 and 1140 in the years 2025 and 2050 respectively.

Due to high temporal and spatial variation of precipitation, the water availability of many region of the country is much below the national average and can be considered as water stressed/water scarce.

In a 2018 report, the water and sanitation advocacy group WaterAid ranked India at the top of 10 countries with lowest access to clean water close to home, with 16.3 crore people not having such access.

What are water stressed and water scarce conditions?

Annual per-capita water availability of less than 1700 cubic meters is considered as water stressed condition.
Annual per- capita water availability below 1000 cubic meters is considered as a water scarcity condition.

What are the challenges?

Falling groundwater levels and frequent droughts.
Increased demand from agriculture and industry.
Pollution and poor water resource management.
Challenges that will intensify as climate change contributes to more extreme weather shocks.
As most of the rivers in the country are inter-State, the regulation and development of waters of these rivers, is a source of inter-State differences and disputes.

Water in the Constitution:

Under Article 246, the Indian Constitution allocates responsibilities of the States and the Centre into three lists– Union List, State List, and Concurrent List.

Water is under Entry 17 of the State List, which reads: “Water, that is to say, water supplies, irrigation and canals, drainage and embankments, water storage and water power subject to the provisions of entry 56 of List I.”

Steps need to be taken to ensure a more useful and productive discourse about water governance challenges:

Reconsider the institutional processes for dissemination of knowledge about water resource management.
Ensure an adequate access to quality water, more so in urban areas where inequities over space and time are acute.
The urban needs, which underpin much reporting on ‘water crises’, need to be met by robust long-term planning and preparation for droughts and other contingencies.
Cities need to stop the destruction of local water bodies and local tree cover, treat its sewage properly, harvest rainwater, and stop straightening and concretizing the rivers and encroaching on their floodplain.
There is an urgent need for coordination among users for aquifers. There should be laws and contracts for sharing of aquifers.
There should be a River Basin Authority for sharing information among states as most of the rivers in India pass through different states focusing on conservation.
Charging money for efficient use of water (as in case of electricity). For example- Water ATMS at Marathwada provide water @25 paisa per litre a day.
Changing the cropping pattern, crop diversification and encouraging water use efficiency in agriculture by moving towards food crops from cash crops.
Coordinated efforts among states for management of ground water at a localized level.
Encouraging rain water harvesting, check dams.