Stressing the water resources
Unfortunately, the current economic growth model proves otherwise.
India, as a country on a high economic growth path has been praised by the world communities for the way it tackled the recent recession. This growth story is, however, dependent on a blind path of industrialisation and mining activities that ironically treat water only as a “commercial good” and exploits it to an irrecoverable extent.
This is in unison with the current day economists influenced by the World Bank, Asian Development Bank and other international financial institutions that believe fixing a price on water holds the key to solving the crisis. This has already started holding the economic boom of this country by its tail. The little “recharge” and “reuse” mantra being chanted by these planning heads of our country is hardly backed up by any strategic mechanism for monitoring and hence remains a plan on papers. Can we afford this anymore? The answer is a big “No.” Despite all tall claims of the industries and formal sectors, agriculture and other natural resource based sectors still remain the highest employment providers in the country. They will remain so for decades and perhaps centuries simply because the current industrial model of development is not ecologically sustainable.
If they don’t fail for anything else, they are bound be doomed due to the growing water scarcity; competition and conflicts around it. Some recent studies support this argument. And by the time the government realises that it has failed, poor policy and planning would have caused severe water shortage for future generations, wild life and ecology.
A recent report on power sector and five manufacturing sectors (steel, cement, paper, fertiliser — only urea and aluminium) by the Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment shows that these sectors alone will grow by four to five fold if India has to maintain its current growth figures. And this means, the mining sector will also grow to meet the mineral demands of these sectors.
The estimated coal requirement in 2030 will be anywhere between 1.5-2 billion tonne; limestone 700-800 million tonne; iron ore 400 million tonne and bauxite 35 million tonne. So, the growth of these minerals will also grow by four to five folds.
Currently, the freshwater withdrawal by the steel, cement, aluminium, fertiliser, paper and power sectors is equivalent to the total domestic water demand of the country (around 42,000 million cubic meters per annum).
Fresh water consumption (water that is lost through evaporation, products and wastes in industries) equals the total drinking and cooking water needs of India (5,600 million cubic meters per annum).
A simple calculation leads us to the fact that to maintain the eight per cent growth rate India will have increased freshwater availability by these six sectors by 40 per cent and freshwater consumption by more than three-fold by the year 2030. The conflicts between water and other sectors are already increasing in many parts of the country and these will just grow beyond control. The industries, as mineral extractive as they are, will also pollute the environment and generate further heat-exerting pressure on water resources, reducing thereby the availability and quality further.
In other words, they will cause local climate change and have a direct impact on the water resources. It is already being said that cumulative impacts of climate change on India’s water resources will be severe. It has been assessed that India will reach a state of water stress before 2025 when the freshwater withdrawal as percentage of total available is projected to exceed 50 per cent.
Adding to these will be several other externalities that affect the freshwater availability of the country. Land use change; deforestation; unsustainable urbanisation are just a few to name. The water planners in the government of India must notice this and take immediate steps to make a achievable plan for water for centuries and not for a few decades as it is being done now. And for such a formulation, water has to be considered as a finite ecological resource where more decentralised management with participation of the people of this country should be legally mandated.
The current moves to privatise water resource management in the name of Public-Private-Participation will just boost the well-designed conspiracy of taking water away from the common people of this country and will be disastrous.
This model supports putting a marked linked price to water which ensures the right of the rich and powerful on water over that of the poor and common people, wild life and more importantly ecology. We should also immediately start taking action on erring polluters and consider planning water under ambit of an integrated ecological rejuvenation model where forestry and land resources also play a major part.
The way the industry and mining lobby are putting pressure on the environment ministry to part with the existing forests of the country is just unaffordable. Water harvesting and storage should also be looked into more seriously than ever before. These are only a few of the many immediate steps the country must start without any further delay. If needed, we can de-urbanise and de-industrialise but we cannot afford to be water stressed any further.
Let’s put water where it belongs. For water it cannot be a Vision 2020 or Vision 2050; it has to be a vision millennia. That, of course, if we want mankind to survive beyond a few decades.
(Author is the Convenor of Water Initiatives Odisha and a senior freelance writer on water, environment and climate change issues.)
ranjanpanda@gmail.com, ranjanpanda_mass@rediffmail.com
No comments:
Post a Comment