According to World Bank data, farmers use nearly 70 per cent of the total groundwater that is drawn in the country each year. India uses more groundwater every year than China and the United States combined.

The water extracted from the wells constitutes more than one-quarter of the world’s total. Due to this heavy overuse, groundwater levels are being depleted all over the country by an average of 0.3 metres a year.

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In some areas, the levels are falling by as much as 4 metres a year. It is groundwater that once boosted the Green Revolution and ensured food security, but today we are in danger of “killing the goose that laid the golden egg”. We have drilled deep for groundwater, without taking this basic hydro-geological fact into account.

Water is in every sense a multi-dimensional resource requiring an understanding of many other disciplines for its sustainable management. So we have to take farmers and agronomists on board so that farmers can work out an approach to manage their water in an equitable and sustainable manner.

Indian utilities compound the problem by callously losing an estimated 40 to 60 per cent of water produced… in contrast to cities like Tokyo which loses 3.7 per cent, Singapore at 4.9 per cent and Phnom Penh’s 6.5 per cent. India is not a water-scarce country. Apart from the major rivers, it receives an average annual rainfall of 1170 millimeters. It boasts renewable water reserves of 1,608 billion cubic meters a year. Given this robust back-up and with the world’s ninth largest freshwater reserves, India’s water woes reflect inefficient management, and not scarcity.

Successive Indian governments have done little to conserve water for off-season use. A staggering $ 52.7 billion have been allocated to so-called major and medium irrigation projects ever since the first five-year plan (1951-56) to the 11th (2007-12), but irrigation has reached only 45 per cent of India’s net-sown area. Even after constructing 4,525 large and small dams, the country has managed to create per capita storage of only 213 cubic meters ~ compared to 6,103 cubic m per capita in Russia, 4,733 in Australia, 1,964 in the United States, and 1,111 in China.

Even after constructing 4,525 large and small dams, the country has managed to create per capita storage of only 213 cubic meters ~ compared to 6,103 cubic m per capita in Russia, 4,733 in Australia, 1,964 in the United States, and 1,111 in China.

India’s water crisis stems from a thorny mix of economic, geographic, and political factors. For one thing, it is highly dependent on a few major river systems, especially the Ganga and its tributaries, for its water supply. But India also uses almost twice the amount of water to grow crops, as compared to China and the United States.

It has been observed that even though Minimum Support Prices (MSPs) are currently announced for 23 crops, the most effective price support is for sugarcane, wheat and rice. This creates highly skewed incentive structures in favour of these water intensive crops.

Today, the country’s agricultural sector accounts for over 90 per cent of the total water drawn, but contributes only around 15 per cent to the country’s GDP. An estimated 89 per cent of the extracted groundwater is used in the irrigation sector (in comparison, household use occupies the second slot at nine per cent, with industrial use accounting for two per cent of groundwater use).

The Asian Development Bank has forecast that by 2030, India will have a water deficit of 50 per cent. The Union Ministry of Water Resources has estimated the country’s current water requirements to be around 1100 billion cubic metres per year, which is estimated to be around 1200 billion cubic metres for the year 2025 and 1447 billion cubic metres for 2050. The average Indian had access to 5,200 cubic metres of water a year in 1951, when the population was 350 million. By 2010, that had dropped to 1,600 cubic metres, a level regarded as “water-stressed” by international organizations. Today it is at about 1,400 cubic metres and analysts say it is likely to fall below the 1,000 cubic metre “water scarcity” limit in the next two to three decades.

In ancient India, people understood the art of water governance. Kautilya’s Arthashastra, written around 300 BC, has details of how tanks and canals must be built and managed. It sought to clarify the enabling role of the state, the king, and the management role of local communities. The kings did not have armies of engineers; they provided fiscal incentives to communities and individuals who built water systems. The British upset this traditional norm by vesting the resource with the state and creating large bureaucracies for management.

Water harvesting techniques have been employed for thousands of years to conserve water for cultivation. Traditionally, this has been the primary use of rainwater harvesting. But this traditional wisdom and knowledge has been abandoned in the race to adopt new economies which have upset the ecological equation. India is currently using only 35 per cent of the rainwater that it receives. If rainwater harvesting projects are effectively implemented, 65 per cent of the rainwater which is wasted can be used. Watershed development is not a new concept in India.

People have conserved water by harvesting, storing, and managing rainfall, runoff and stream flows. Most of the water management has been done at the community level, relying upon diverse, imaginative and effective methods for harvesting rainwater in tanks and small underground storage systems.

These were abandoned when we introduced reforms which we attributed to so-called superior knowledge compared to traditional wisdom. They are now little more than a fad. Climatic complications are increasing and India needs to take a call on the issue. For any planned intervention to be successful, we need firm timelines.

The country’s impressive economic growth must translate to faster progress in this critical area. It will have to change course and shift away from the business-as-usual approach before water runs out.

(The writer is the author of Village Diary of a Heretic Banker. He can be reached at moinqazi123@gmail.com)