India’s Dehydrated Condition: Will India Ever Achieve Water Sustainability?

By Camile Loftin

India has the second largest population in the world, but it only holds four percent of the world’s freshwater resources.[1] The country suffers from one of the worst water crises in the world, and it is known as the “center of the global water and sanitation crisis.”[2] Two hundred and twenty nine million people in India do not have access to improved sanitation while 91 million people do not have access to safe water.[3] Contextually, more than 75 percent of families must rely on unsafe sources of drinking water because they lack access to safe, drinkable water sources.[4] Two hundred thousand people die annually as a result.[5] Moreover, India’s water crisis is expected to worsen as the country’s population continues to disproportionately increase.[6] NITI Aayog estimates that twenty-one major cities will run out of groundwater by 2030.[7]

 Where India lacks in its infrastructure planning, its cities also lack the ability to handle the stress accompanied by the country’s population growth.[8] There are no places to store usable rainwater, and the systems in place to conserve water—such as rainwater harvesting systems, water reuse and recycling systems, and waste water treatment systems—are limited.[9] Even in the areas that have a wet climate, India does not have many rain harvesting programs in place.[10] As a result, most of the water in these wet climates are either displaced or dried up rather than collected for use.[11]

 Changing weather patterns—including the country’s repeated droughts—play a role in Indian citizens’ inability to access fresh water.[12] Additionally, more than 70 percent of the country’s aquifers are dried up and overdrawn.[13] This inaccessibility to safe drinking water contributes to “water-borne illnesses, stunting, and death,” resulting in roughly $600 million in medical expenses and labor loss.[14] In fact, more than 21 percent of India’s diseases are water-related.[15] Hospitals’ inability to access safe water does not help with the treatment or prevention of these water-borne diseases.[16]

 In addition, the food supply is also threatened by the scarce amounts of water available for wheat and rice cultivation.[17] India’s agricultural needs take up more than 85 percent of the country’s available water.[18] However, due to climate change, famers are unable to align their crop patterns with the rain patterns because they do not know how much rain they can expect.[19] In Imlidol, India, the scarce amounts of water only allow the residents to grow one crop a year.[20] When the water used for irrigation has dried up, farmers use untreated wastewater contaminated with sewage and industrial chemicals.[21]

 The amount of industrial and human waste, in addition to the increased privatization of water and government corruption, contribute to the water scarcity in India.[22] In fact, the quality of the drinking water is so poor that even the facilities that have access to water purifiers have water that exceeds permissible Ph limits and that is contaminated with E Coli.[23] Other water sources without access to water purifiers contain biological pollutants and chemical pollutants.[24] Moreover, access to water has become privatized, where the wealthy are the only people who can afford water and other basic resources during times of “fatal droughts, famine[,] and heatwaves.”[25] In Bengaluru, India, water costs are excessive, and citizens only have water access for three hours of the day during three days of the week.[26] Generally, citizens without access to groundwater wait in line for community water from government water tankers.[27] For example, in cities such as Bangalore and Hyderabad, citizens do not have access to tap or groundwater, so the residents rely on emergency government tanks to provide water.[28] However, “tanker mafias” have emerged, dictating who may access water as well as the costs of water access.[29]

 Inaccessibility to safe water has become so normalized that it is common to marry for water. In villages where groundwater is available, polygamous marriages often arise due to the fact that it is deemed a woman’s job in India to fetch water for the household.[30] It is common for unmarried women whose families cannot afford their dowries or widowed women to become “water wives” for the sake of bringing in more water for the family unit.[31] Gathering groundwater is a daunting process, which can take up to five or six hours for the women in the village to collect.[32]

 India’s water crisis consequently will have a long-term impact on the country’s economic growth, agricultural production, power supply, and availability of drinking water, as well as climate change.[33] This crisis has become a political issue, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi has promised rural households piped water by the next national election.[34] Where India is currently not self-sufficient with regard to water retention and use, foreign intervention may be necessary—India is the largest extractor of groundwater in the world, yet its demand for water exceeds the amount of water resources available.[35] India’s future hangs in the balance as a country whose demand for water puts its citizens in a position where they may soon become “climate refugees” within a few years if no solution is available.[36]

 By creating and enforcing legislation to incentivize people to conserve water, water preservation may still be on the horizon.[37] Groundwater regulations, regulations on emergency government water tankers, and laws designating specific bodies of water as “heritage bodies and conservation areas” may make an impact in preserving water in the long run.[38] According to a NIC-sponsored contractor study, water technology will have a significant impact on the global freshwater supply and demand over the next 30 years.[39] Such technology includes drip-irrigation systems, developing drought-resistant crops, salt and waste-water tolerant crops, and point-of-use water-purification technologies.[40] Thus, international agreements with countries recognized as leaders in water technology to establish better infrastructure and share technology may be of significance for more current means of providing India with enough water to meet its demand.[41] While India’s water crisis will loom overhead for years, there is still hope for the country to establish water sustainability once again.

[1] Shannyn Snyder, Water Crisis in India, The Water Project, https://thewaterproject.org/water-crisis/water-in-crisis-india; Anuj Behal & Dimple Behal, India’s water crisis: It is most acute for women, DowntoEarth (Aug. 16, 2021), https://www.downtoearth.org.in/blog/water/india-s-water-crisis-it-is-most-acute-for-women-78472#:~:text=India%20is%20water%2Dstressed%20due,Board%20data%20(from%202017).

[2] Manas Ranjan Hota, India’s water crisis: is there a solution?, Financial Express (Sept. 23, 2020), https://www.financialexpress.com/lifestyle/science/indias-water-crisis-is-there-a-solution/2089860/.

[3] India, Water.org, https://water.org/our-impact/where-we-work/india/.

[4] Anuj Behal & Dimple Behal, India’s water crisis: It is most acute for women, DowntoEarth (Aug. 16, 2021), https://www.downtoearth.org.in/blog/water/india-s-water-crisis-it-is-most-acute-for-women-78472#:~:text=India%20is%20water%2Dstressed%20due,Board%20data%20(from%202017); Manas Ranjan Hota, India’s water crisis: is there a solution?, Financial Express (Sept. 23, 2020), https://www.financialexpress.com/lifestyle/science/indias-water-crisis-is-there-a-solution/2089860/.

[5] Hota, supra note 2.

[6] Snyder, supra note 1.

[7] Raj Chengappa, The Great Indian Thirst: The Story of India’s Water Crisis, Solutions to Tackle it, IndiaToday, (Mar. 20, 2021), https://www.indiatoday.in/magazine/cover-story/story/20210329-the-great-indian-thirst-1781280-2021-03-20

[8] Jesse Yeung, India has just five years to resolve its water crisis, experts fear. Hundreds of Millions of lives will be in danger, CNN (July 3, 2019), https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/27/india/india-water-crisis-intl-hnk/index.html.

[9] Id.

[10] Snyder, supra note 1.

[11] Id.

[12] Behal, supra note 4.

[13] Mujib Mashal & Hari Kumar, In India’s Water-Stressed Villages, Modi Seeks a Tap for every Home, NewYorkTimes, (Dec. 21, 2021), https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/21/world/asia/india-water-modi.html.

[14] India, Water.org, https://water.org/our-impact/where-we-work/india/; Mujib Mashal & Hari Kumar, In India’s Water-Stressed Villages, Modi Seeks a Tap for every Home, NewYorkTimes, (Dec. 21, 2021), https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/21/world/asia/india-water-modi.html.

[15] Snyder, supra note 1.

[16] See Yeung, supra note 8.

[17] Hota, supra note 2.

[18] Chengappa, supra note 7.

[19] PTI, Climate Refugee Crisis Beckons in India if water scarcity continues: ‘waterman’ Rajendra Singh, The Times of India, (Oct. 9, 2021),  https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/environment/climate-refugee-crisis-beckons-in-india-if-water-scarcity-continues-waterman-rajendra-singh/articleshow/86890887.cms.

[20] Mashal, supra note 13.

[21] Water Scarcity in India, Circle of Blue, https://www.circleofblue.org/indiawater/.

[22] Snyder, supra note 1.

[23] Hota, supra note 2.

[24] Snyder, supra note 1.

[25] Yeung, supra note 8.

[26] Hota, supra note 2.

[27] Yeung, supra note 8.

[28] Id.

[29] Id.

[30] Behal, supra note 4.

[31] Id.

[32] Mashal, supra note 13.

[33] Kishor Sarmah, By 2030 Demand for Water will reach twice the available supply in India, YKA (Sept. 3, 2019), https://www.youthkiawaaz.com/2019/09/water-crisis-in-india-its-impact-and-solutions/.

[34] Archana Chaudhary, Clean Water in All Homes is Modi’s Next Big India Election Play, Bloomberg, (Mar. 13, 2021), https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-13/clean-water-in-all-homes-is-modi-s-next-big-india-election-play.

[35] Id.

[36] PTI, supra note 19.

[37] See Vijayta Lalwani, As the water crisis deepens, can India afford to leave groundwater unregulated?, Scroll.in (Jul. 11, 2019), https://scroll.in/article/929433/as-the-water-crisis-deepens-can-india-afford-to-leave-groundwater-unregulated.

[38] See id.

[39] See Intelligence Community Assessment, Global Water Security, DNI, at 9, (Feb. 2 2012), https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/Special%20Report_ICA%20Global%20Water%20Security.pdf.

[40] See id.

[41] See id.