The way to solve water crises in India is to implement ways of using water efficiently and not the much-hyped concept of conservation, said Anuj Kanwal, commissioner (water management and command area development and water use efficiency office), department of water resources, river development and Ganga rejuvenation, Jal Shakti Ministry.
“We are talking about using water appropriately and not abusing it,” Kanwal said Tuesday at the Mint Sustainability Summit 2024. “Water stress will affect about 60 million Indians,” he added.
According to a report, the Brahmaputra and Godavari river basins are the only ones in good condition among the 20 river basins in India, Kanwal said.
He also said it is important to find ways to use water efficiently in agriculture as irrigation is the biggest water user. He added that farmers are extracting more water from the ground than they need. If this water is used more efficiently, it can be diverted to other places, he added. The government is thinking of introducing “smart irrigation” to ensure this, he said.
Greater industrial use is needed
Kanwal added that India uses more water than other countries for agriculture and the share of water used for industrial development will have to increase if India wants to become a developed country. “We are striving to have major manufacturing factories in India and that is water intensive,” Kanwal said. “Even manufacturing of mobile screens, for which we are striving to set up manufacturing facilities in India, is water intensive.”
To use water more efficiently, we need to start by looking at its source, Kanwal said. “A farmer consumes 100,000 litres a day, but for one hectare of gehu (wheat) cultivation, a maximum of 40,000 litres a day is needed,” he explained. “We should not look at the benefit of one sector alone; we look at all sectors as a whole.”
Kanwal said Saudi Arabia was the world’s largest wheat exporter until 2000, but when they realised that it would affect their groundwater levels, they changed their policy and stopped exporting it. “Now Saudi Arabia is the largest importer of wheat and India has become the largest exporter.”
Kanwal said community participation is a must to ensure efficient use of water. He also said that the concept of ‘water credits’ will be developed in India in the future. At the moment, he said, the concept is at a nascent stage.
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