In technology lies the answer to India’s water woe
As India, the second most populous nation on globe, remains preoccupied with abrogation of Kashmir’s special constitutional privileges, a full-blown water crisis, accentuated by poor water-management and planning, is about to explode anytime and may end up causing unprecedented fratricide over water access, apart from food insecurity, epidemic and industrial slowdown. Besides, with one out of six people on this planet living in India and surviving on just 4 percent of global freshwater, the country is on the verge of turning water-scarce very soon. The Indian government Think Tank NITI Ayog, had warned of an impending water crisis, which will be the worst in this nation’s history, putting millions of citizens at risk of Day Zero – a scary water deficit scenario when all taps run dry. No less than 21 cities, including Delhi, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai, will run out of groundwater as early as 2020. It also painted a gloomy picture of India’s water demand rising to twice the available supply by 2030, and consequently triggering a six percent slide in national GDP. Adding to the woe, IHS Markit – a world leader in critical information, analytics and solutions, included water shortage among the principal reasons behind a subdued business sentiment in India, which has fallen to its lowest level since 2016. In fact, India’s water crisis has turned out to be a serious threat to the Indian industry, as it is negatively impacting operational efficiency. In 2018 alone, 64 multinationals reported 84 water related risks in India, including increased water stress and scarcity, drought and declining water quality. With three out of every four jobs across the globe depending on stable water supplies, India has its work cut out as the country’s unemployment rate has reached its highest level in 45 years.
New Delhi is working on a potential game-changer, which draws on Israel’s experience of using desalinated marine water for wider domestic use. But the big question is, can desalination solve India's water woe?
Seema Sengupta
As the water time bomb ticks away in India, with at least 600 million people facing acute water shortages nationwide, while 200,000 dying each year from inadequate or unsafe water supplies, the issue of water was at the center of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s annual Independence Day speech this August. Extremely worried by NITI Ayog’s revelation, New Delhi is working on a potential game-changer, which draws on Israel’s experience of using desalinated marine water for wider domestic use. But the big question is, can desalination solve India's water woe? It might be effective for coastal cities and power plants, but is not a remedy for the extended hinterland of a huge country having abundant natural freshwater sources. Moreover, it is difficult to foresee how desalination can be a panacea for India or South Asia, with a thriving coastal fishing industry, because brine residue negatively affects fish habitat and is capable of destroying the marine ecosystem, as evident from the biologically endangered waters around the Middle-East. Zafar Adeel, Executive Director of Pacific Water Research Centre and former Chair of UN-Water told me, though water shortages in many coastal areas make desalination appear like an attractive option, there is a flip side too. Apart from intensive capital investment and environmental concern, a less obvious impact is the increase in carbon and water footprint because of heavy energy usage. For Adeel, desalination is a diversionary trend at the policy level that distracts us from critical inputs necessary for water-demand management.
Unfortunately, the tendency to look for supply-side shortcut solutions, instead of concentrating on efficiency enhancement in water-supply management, is coming in the way of confronting the water crisis more effectively. Arjun Thapan, an internationally acclaimed water expert, Asian Development Bank’s ex- Director General and current chair of non-profit WaterLinks, emphasized to me that if India saved half the water it loses because of leakage and theft, improved irrigation efficiency, reduced industrial water footprint and introduced widespread wastewater treatment and reuse, there would be no water crisis. As mega-cities grows rapidly in size and over-shoots water storage and supply capacity, there is a need for balancing supply-demand. For instance, deploying hi-end innovative technology can plug the daily loss of 135 million gallon filtered water in my home city of Calcutta, on which thrives an illegal potable water business. The provincial government has launched a pilot project in Calcutta’s satellite “New Town Smart City” to improve efficiency of water utilities, where wireless technology with unique identifiers, providing analytics on water flow, will detect leakage and help prevent transmission loss. Debashis Sen, eminent “Future City Strategist” and Additional Chief Secretary confirmed to me that the project entails installation of smart water-meters in supply grid, connected to a cloud through LoRA Wireless network, which is ideal for such lightweight non-continuous data connectivity. This unique concept can indeed solve India’s as well as South Asia’s water woes, since the region’s per capita water availability, barring Nepal and Bhutan, is already below the world average, while major cities like Bangalore, Karachi and Kabul are among the global top 10, facing imminent water crisis.
