POV: MUDDY WATERS
India is suffering from the worst water crisis in its history and millions of lives and livelihoods are under threat.” This dire warning from the NITI Aayog Composite Water Management Index report released last week was overdue. But the realisation of its objective of transforming water management in India will require a considerably more rigorous and objective exercise than the Aayog has performed.
The NITI report is candid: “It’s a matter of concern that 600 million people in India face high to extreme water stress in the country… with nearly 70 per cent of water being contaminated, India is placed at 120th amongst 122 countries in the water quality index.” The crisis of India’s water resources starts with the data. Without naming the Central Water Commission (CWC), India’s main hydrologic data gatherer, the NITI report is unequivocal in its indictment of the water data system in India, which it describes as limited in coverage, robustness and efficiency, yielding data which is of inferior quality, inconsistent and unreliable. In shying away from naming the CWC, the NITI Aayog is being either dishonest, politically convenient or just plain incompetent. Some of the data used by it in the report is also highly questionable. For example, it says India has 12 million wells, though more credible data points to a figure of 30 million. Similarly, the report may be the first of its kind in India, but its claim—“This pioneering work of NITI Aayog in developing a Composite Water Management Index is perhaps the first of its kind in the world”—is unnecessary hyperbole.
The report would have had more credibility if its process had been transparent and conducted by a credible independent team. The claim of the report that the process involved robust data validation does not stand scrutiny. The appointment of IPE Global as an ‘independent validation agency’ raises many questions.
The report has listed nine themes and 28 indicators that it used to decide the points and ranking for states, but the list misses many key issues that are fundamental to proper water management. These include: environment (water is not just a commodity but a resource embedded in the ecosystem, so how you manage these ecosystems will determine how much water you may get), industrial water use, water pollution management, rainwater, rivers, flood management, minor irrigation, water conservation, institutional functioning, climate change, inter-agency coordination and real groundwater regulation. In many cases, the exercise just ends with the question: ‘Has the State notified any Act or a regulatory framework for regulation of groundwater use/ management?’, with an answer required in yes/ no format. It does not consider or assess the implementation. There is no involvement of civil society or communities in this whole exercise.
Meanwhile, the prognosis that the historical water crisis that India is now facing is likely to get worse is already panning out in new areas in different forms. Gujarat, which receives top billing in the NITI Aayog report, experienced its worst water crisis this summer, that too in a year when its lifeline project, Sardar Sarovar, was declared complete by the prime minister and when the water storage at the Narmada dam was the highest ever. This was mostly due to the complete mismanagement of available water in Gujarat this year.
Shimla, the capital of Himachal Pradesh— ranked second among Himalayan states—faced its most publicised water crisis in peak tourist season this year. This was avoidable, considering that the reasons for the impending crisis were already writ large in terms of lower winter rainfall and river flows and contamination of its streams two years ago.
Given its fundamental limitations, this report won’t help the NITI Aayog achieve its stated objective of ‘identifying, targeting and solving problems in the water sector’. The Aayog will need to work on future editions with much more rigour and transparency. In the meantime, India’s water crisis will continue to meander through the groundwater aquifers, out of sight, until the next calamity.
The crisis of India’s water resources starts with the data. But the NITI Aayog report shies away from pointing fingers