Water scarcity is a big and scary problem but there are meaningful and pragmatic solutions we can engage with to tackle it head on. 

The desperation that water scarcity evokes made headlines this summer, as often before. graphic images of struggles for water across the country, most vividly in New Delhi, jumping on to water tankers just to fill one bucket showed how much value there was for something we treat so casually for the rest of the year.  

Experts will tell you that water stress is not just a summer-months issue, or one limited to certain parts of the country. In fact, it has plagued large swathes of rural India for decades and 540 districts  are currently rated as water stressed1 (of 788 districts2 in the country). 

Importantly, in these parts rains make or break lives, given agriculture drives bulk of rural India’s working population3. We can also not solve the water problem, without focusing on both its availability and use in the agricultural sector, given more than 80% of its consumption lies there! 

It is no wonder that Moody’s has warned that the biggest risk to India is of water scarcity, going so far as to say that the water crisis could lead to social unrest if the agriculture and industrial sectors are disrupted. 

Can something be done to change this outlook in a relative short-time, using modest resources, and in an environmentally sustainable manner?

The answer is yes and to dig deeper, we need to first understand that while climate change is making monsoons more unpredictable in a country where drought is frequent, even our water stressed districts receive below 750 mm of rain at an average.

To put this in perspective this is more than the annual precipitation in almost 71 nations around the globe. Our water scarcity issue is largely magnified by – firstly, inadequate capture (both above and below the ground) of water and second, inefficient consumption of this water.

It is estimated that we take nearly [twice] as much water to grow our crops as the global average. It is only if we make meaningful improvements on these two fronts will we be able to win the war on drought.   

Ground evidence

Evidence from ground suggests that meaningful improvements on account of storage and recharge, can become a reality if we all come together to solve this issue.

The Prime Minister’s clarion call to “Catch the Rain, Where it Falls and When it Falls,’ has led to Amrit Sarovar mission in which rapid rejuvenation/ creation of around 75,000 water harvesting structures has happened. 

This demonstrates that there is enough capability in our states to augment storage potential if we do it in mission mode.

A recently launched report by CSE notes that this and several other examples, such as the Maharashtra Government’s Gaalmukt Dharan Gaalyukt Shivir (GDGS) scheme, and the Rajasthan Government’s Mukhyamantri Jal Swavlamban Abhiyan are productive attempts to improve distributed storage.   

The common thread between all these successes is that while they’ve been delivered by Governments, they have high community engagement, often orchestrated by Civil Society Organizations with deep rooted presence in these regions.

Adequate donor funding to activate such movements, like in the case of GDGS, will definitely help build support systems and technology platforms, that enable transformation at scale.  

The kind of work highlighted by CSE in their report can be scaled manifold over the coming five years to a decade. If all actors come together and plan strategically, there is potential to take this community-owned solution for augmenting surface and groundwater storage across 1.7 lakh water bodies in the 8 most drought-affected States.

This can augment approximately 42 per cent of a family’s annual domestic water needs of 310 million villagers in 2.6 lakh villages, making a very meaningful dent in the war against drought which as per one Government body’s own estimates costs 2-5 per cent of GDP ​every year. Importantly, doing so will cost a very small fraction of this cost and usher in rural prosperity.  

Supporting rejuvenation

Our own experience points to how both speed and scale can be achieved for this important task. Over the last decade, working alongside various Governments, we along with other partners like Caring Friends, RG Manudhane Foundation, Tata Capital, and others, have helped support the rejuvenation of around 5,000 water bodies impacting more than 7,000 villages.

It is interesting that most of this work has happened over the last 3 years, showing that rapid scaling is possible.  

What has enabled this scaling? While Government budgets are earmarked for machine expenses, philanthropic capital has been used for driving systemic transformation that materially improves outcomes. First, to build tools that manage processes efficiently at scale.

For example, the Foundation for Ecological Security’s Open-Source tool is used to prioritise water bodies that can help augment ground and surface storage. Tech4Dev’s array of tools is used in accurate monitoring, data visualisation and troubleshooting.

Onboarding new agencies to the work has become easier due to digitization of content and delivery platforms. The capital used for funding these has ensured these tools are available offline, are multi-lingual (in 5 languages so far) and open source.

Already, the Government of Maharashtra uses the Avni Gramin App for seamlessly managing its desilting scheme.  

NPOs critical role

Second, Not for Profits (NPOs) have been leveraged to play a critical role in ensuring successful last mile implementation. Their deep-rooted connections with rural communities significantly improve participation in government programs and help create maker-checker systems.

In our work we see this repeatedly, where NPOs work within a narrow timeframe of March – Jun to ensure community participation and have enabled more than 50,000 farmers to directly improve soil quality and unlocking water security for nearly 1 crore rural Indians.  

Combining these elements has been imperative drive scale, enabling just in the case of our work the creation of additional, distributed surface storage equivalent of the size of the Khadakwasla dam.

Importantly, community participation has enabled this at 1/3rd the cost and in just 3-6 months, while a typical reservoir or dam construction project takes over a decade and often involves environmental and social disruptions. 

Over the last decade, we have learnt that participating in such a model can drive deep change in rural India. For instance, farmers applying fertile silt to their fields can often double their annual income in a season, while the change in water availability for the villages has a transformational impact.

Longitudinal studies indicate that such impact lasts close to 8 years post-desiltation, additional benefits include increase in gross cropped area and an ability to resist shocks due to poor rainfall. Programs like Amrit Sarovar and rejuvenation of water bodies need to be taken up at much larger scale. 

Several donors and CSRs are already deeply committed to the cause of water security and we hope many more will come forward to partner with Governments, given how critical the issue of Water Security is and the transformative impact rejuvenation of waterbodies can have all across India.   

The authors are from A.T.E Chandra Foundation

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