| Groundwater is getting depleted fast across India and it is time the authorities thought of making and enforcing effective laws governing its use. |
As summer marks its slow retreat over the Indo-Gangetic plain, the data on the status of groundwater aquifers across the country make for grim reading. While borewells in Punjab have hit frightening depths of 120 metres below the surface, arsenic contamination in West Bengal and Jharkhand has exposed communities to dangerous levels of toxicity. In the south, in coastal States such as Tamil Nadu, experts fear, reckless mining for water may have ruptured the sedimentary rock layers that separate freshwater aquifers from the saline ingress of the sea.
What is surprising is that India has no real laws to govern the use of groundwater for either communities or industry. Groundwater disputes in India are settled according to the Indian Easements Act of 1882, in which groundwater is interpreted as a right attached to land. Hence, owners of a plot of land have unrestricted access to the water that lies below it. While such an interpretation offers a degree of independence to individual and community users, the same law has been used to justify the sucking out of millions of litres of water by giant industries every day. The growth of bottling and paper industries, distilleries and steel plants has resulted in pitched battles between communities and corporations for control over common water sources.
Punjab and Uttar Pradesh illustrate the environmental fallout of two different practices. A flawed agricultural policy has pushed parts of Punjab into drought, while in Uttar Pradesh the sugar-distillery-petrochemical complex is destroying a communal resource that the industry pays nothing for.
Of late, the Union and State governments seem to have woken up to the absence of a framework to deal with groundwater utilisation. The Ministry of Water Resources proposed the Ground Water (Regulation and Control of Development and Management) Act in 2005. Yet, it remains just a proposal with no time frame for enactment.
Meanwhile, India's freshwater crisis seems to have caught the eye of the Planning Commission. Recent reports suggest that an experts committee has been set up to study the implications of a groundwater cess policy and its recommendations are to be included in the 11th Plan approach paper; but neither the terms of reference nor the recommendations of this committee have been made public.
The first step towards regulation of groundwater use could be a rationalisation of water tariffs, especially for industry. At present, the Central Pollution Control Board simply collects a water cess under the Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Cess Act of 1977. However, the maximum cess collected under any category is 30 paise per 1,000 litres. The minimum is five paise per 1,000 litres.
Tariffs as low as these offer companies no incentives to move from existing water-hungry industrial processes to modern, less consumptive ones. They also fail to consider food and beverage plants where water is a crucial input in the final product and is exported out of the local water cycle. According to documents released by the Uttar Pradesh Pollution Control Board, in 2000-01, distilleries across the State produced 4,32,489 kilolitres of alcohol. The same report suggested that on an average, for each kilolitre of alcohol produced 125 kilolitres of water was used.
Commoditising water is always a controversial choice to make. Those in favour of it argue that commoditising implies better management and conservation. Those opposed to the idea point to scenarios where a consumer-driven management model for a fundamental need such as water shall result in economically and socially marginalised groups being priced out of the system.
However, formulating a policy that caters to the needs of communities and simultaneously checks indiscriminate use by industry is neither impossible nor inconceivable.
Poor industrial practices and a myopic environmental policy lead to the pollution of north India's water resources.
Water from a handpump outside a sugar factory in Mora village in Bijnor district of Uttar Pradesh.
Officials at the Bijnor District Industrial Council give a sheepish smile as they admit that "the water from our handpumps is unfit for use". Effluents from the state-owned Uttar Pradesh Sugar Limited across the street has contaminated groundwater, and handpumps in the neighbourhood yield foul-smelling, yellowish water. Houses and offices around the sugar mill get a limited supply of municipal water drawn from aquifers more than 60 metres below the surface. Bijnor in western Uttar Pradesh's sugar country is an important stop for the distillery industry that contributed Rs.2,686 crore to the State exchequer in 2004-05 - more than any other industry. According to State government estimates released in 2002, it also provided employment to more than 8,000 people in the State. However, increasing instances of surface and groundwater pollution near the distillery sites have brought the industry into sharp focus.
Enclosed by high concrete walls, the Dhampur Sugar Mills (DSM) complex in Bijnor towers above tiny houses and lush fields in Mora village. Thanks to an abundant supply of water and molasses in the area, DSM grew from a simple distillery to a giant petrochemical plant producing ethanol derivatives such as ethyl acetate, formaldehyde, acetic acid and acetic anhydride. The plant produced oxalic acid until a year ago. Recently, it set up a biogas-fuelled power plant, which utilises some of the waste from by the mill. A report, "Environmental Performance of Alcohol Industry in Uttar Pradesh", published by the Uttar Pradesh Pollution Control Board (UPPCB), rated DSM Bijnor seventh among 33 distilleries surveyed for environmental performance.
The villagers, however, are hardly impressed. "Effluents from the distillery and chemical plant have destroyed life in the village," says Akhtari Khatoon, a 65-year-old grandmother, sitting by what used to be the village pond, now a hyacinth-choked swamp. Khatoon says the village's sole surface water source became unusable 10 years ago when the distillery began discharging waste into it. Water from the handpumps began to stink and turn yellow; it turned a deep ochre when exposed to sunlight. Children complained of stomach cramps and there were digestive tract infections, cows and buffaloes turned sterile, and milk and crop yields fell. Demonstrations staged outside the District Magistrate's office resulted in the administration installing two India Mark II handpumps.
The India Mark II handpump was developed by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in the late 1970s to draw water from borewells exceeding 30 m in depth. In Bijnor, where the water table seldom falls below 4.5 m, the Mark II has been introduced to bypass the contaminated upper layers and tap aquifers more than 55 m below the surface. DSM, for its part, agreed to supply water in tanks to the villagers every day, but has not done so for the last six months.
The pollution in Bijnor was not entirely unforeseen. A 2002 report by the Central Pollution Control Board, "Management of Distillery Wastewater", notes that "molasses-based distillery industry ... is considered one of the most polluting" and that effluents from the distilleries have high quantities of decomposable organic matter, dissolved salts and "a persistent dark brown colour". A series of directives from the Board and the Ministry of Environment and Forests have meant that distilleries are to be "zero discharge" in terms of effluence, but in many cases the damage has already been done.
"The groundwater around DSM has yielded brownish water in the past," says P.K. Aggarwal, Regional Officer of the State Pollution Control Board. "Apart from the colour, and maybe the smell, there is nothing wrong with the water." Sitting in his office in Moradabad, 100 km away from Bijnor, Aggarwal claims that the groundwater in Dhampur is perfectly safe for drinking and that the villagers "are prone to exaggeration".
However, many villagers are said to have been diagnosed with gastro-alimentary illnesses that could be caused by the polluted water. In fact, oxalic acid, manufactured by the DSM until a year ago, combines with metal ions present in the human body to form crystals that affect the kidneys and the alimentary tract. A January 2005 Supreme Court ruling holds hazardous industries responsible for the environmental fallout of their actions, but little has been done against the distillery industry. This forces communities and individuals to spend on household filtration systems or bear the medical expenses.
Chooiya Nalla, a half-hour drive from the DSM complex, is the principal cause of anguish for farmers who live near it. Originally a seasonal stream that brought monsoon run-off to Salempur village, Chooyia Nalla now is a drain for the effluents from the Mohit Petrochemicals complex - comprising a distillery, paper mill and a petrochemical plant - upstream. The State Pollution Control Board insists that the plant's effluents "at the point of discharge" are within stipulated norms. But it is unable to explain why Chooyia Nalla is a viscous black cesspool.
Even if the industry meets pollution-control standards, it would not be doing enough to protect and conserve the fast depleting freshwater resources in north India. The standards themselves need a severe overhaul. A Centre for Science and Environment report says that regulators abroad are shifting from "concentration-based standards" of water quality to "pollution load-based standards". In the latter, pollution is measured on the basis of the total amount of pollution generated per unit of production, coupled with a stringent quota system for water usage, depending on the type of industry. This helps the industry to monitor pollution and conserve water.
Regulators in India persist with concentration-based standards, which simply measure the amount of pollutants per unit of water. The trifling cost of freshwater allows the industry to clear emission standards by diluting the effluents. This fails to reduce the actual quantum of pollutants, and also encourages the wastage of freshwater.
There are no legally enforceable standards for water utilisation. According to a report of the State Pollution Control Board, DSM uses 237.84 litres of water for every litre of alcohol produced; the Central Pollution Control Board benchmark is 15 litres of water for a litre of alcohol.
Environmental regulations and legislation are among the hardest industrial rules to enforce and are often seen as detrimental to industrial growth. Recent debates in India and in multi-lateral forums look at emission standards and pollution control as instruments of the global North to curb development in the South. The realpolitik behind global environment legislation cannot be ignored; nor can the implications of a myopic environment policy and poor industrial practice.
In Punjab, deeper and deeper tubewells are sunk as the water table keeps going down.
A parched paddy field in Punjab. Farmers are reluctant to shift from rice, a water guzzler, to other crops.
THE State that has often described itself with pride as the bread basket of the nation is walking an ecological tightrope. Punjab's rivers have less water than they used to have, it gets less rain than normal, and its groundwater has been abstracted with frightening abandon in recent decades.
According to Sushil Gupta, Regional Director, Central Ground Water Board (CGWB), 103 blocks in Punjab (of a total of 138) are overexploited. He used a simple analogy: "Hundred litres are pouring in and 110 are being taken out. It is like mining water, which is not being replenished."
He added, however, that he could not do much since he had no magisterial powers. "Water is a State subject, and in Punjab it is a very touchy subject."
In Punjab, it is also a subject of chronic worry. Chamkaur Singh describes the water scarcity in Moga-1, one of the blocks marked "critical" by the CGWB, as a sort of disease that needs an expert doctor. A farmer in Dudike village, he said tubewells were being dug in the area at 120 metres. "Our well was sunk at 60 m earlier but the water was unfit for drinking and it spoilt the crops. I have got a new submersible pump, at 120 m. It cost me Rs.1.25 lakh," he said.
Until about 1955, Chamkaur Singh's well had the Persian wheel and bullocks. A motor was installed in the well in 1968. In 1975, the family dug a tubewell at 45 m; in about 10 years, it got worn out. A new well was sunk at a new spot, at 60 m. In 2006-07, he got a 15 hp (horsepower) motor installed 120 m down.
In addition to the cost of installing and maintaining motors in tubewells, the family spends around Rs.1,000 a day on diesel. It gets free electricity for eight hours a day, after which the diesel generator is used. Chamkaur Singh's story is fairly representative of the average landowning family.
There are five shops selling pumps and pipes in nearby Ajitwal village. Paramjit Singh opened his shop four years ago. "Two years ago, there were not many customers, but now 90 per cent of the farmers buy pumps," he said. "First we sold 5 hp and 7 hp motors but now everyone wants at least 10 hp motors, which costs Rs.22,500. We are even selling 20 hp motors."
As the tubewells go quite deep, the pump needs to work harder than before and many farmers install two pumps in a single bore. Paramjit Singh said about 70 per cent of the farmers were in debt after getting the tubewells installed, and about 10 per cent could not repay their loans.
When things came to such a pass, residents of Mal Singhwala village in Mansa district simply threw their hands up and declared the village was up for sale. Sarpanch Jasbir Singh admitted that the announcement was an attempt to draw the State's attention to the water problem in the village where at least nine families sold their land and one couple committed suicide.
He estimated that about 100 acres [one acre is 0.4 hectare] were sold, mostly to outsiders who were not aware how critical the water situation was. Often, the new buyers, too, sold the land to other unsuspecting outsiders.
"The village was put up for sale on July 2, 2005, since we had no canal water and the groundwater was saline. If we use this water, the soil turns barren," said Jasbir. "One tubewell costs Rs.4 lakh around here. My own well is 365 m deep."
The water from the handpumps not being potable, villagers fetch drinking water from the neighbouring village of Chhine. The burden of this is on women and children. Manpreet Kaur, a Class VIII student, spends four hours daily to make about eight trips to the handpump. She has been doing so for the last three years.
The State government reacted to the situation by saying that the problem persists across Punjab. Officials came to the village, looked around, asked questions and left. The sarpanch has now issued an ultimatum that if nothing is done, the villagers will block the canal in Chhine.
Water guzzlers
Dr. Gurudev Hira, who retired as Additional Director of Research at the Punjab Agriculture University, traces the decline of the water table back to the 19th century. "In 1849, the British created an irrigation department, partly to keep the soldiers busy. By 1859, a canal network was built. The water table rose with the creation of the waterworks. Rice was introduced in the 1950s, since large areas were waterlogged," he said. With rice, and the Green Revolution, everything changed.
Until 1960, groundwater accounted for only one-third of the State's irrigation needs; now it accounts for 73 per cent. There are 11.68 lakh tubewells now as against 1.92 lakh in 1970-71. From 1970 to 2004, the area under rice cultivation went up by 580 per cent. The area under maize, and groundnuts and bajra, all of which require much less water, declined by 72 per cent and 98 per cent, respectively.
While farmers such as Chamkaur Singh would willingly substitute maize or bajra for rice, they feel the State offers very little support to alternative crops. He knows that since eating habits have changed, the market does not exist. "Also, the crop is susceptible to infection," he said. "The government has not invested in research to get newer, better seeds. Nor is the minimum support price and the off-take comparable to those of rice."
So, the most significant guzzler of groundwater continues to monopolise the land. The transplantation of rice requires the fields to be flooded, and since the monsoon does not arrive until July, farmers resort to tubewell irrigation. That the State government decided to offer free electricity to farmers just made matters worse.
Dr. Hira describes the electricity sop as a form of sweet poisoning. "Punjab gives Rs.2,400 crore as power subsidy, of which Rs.1,500 crore must be spent on rice. In addition to that, farmers spend about Rs.1,500 crore-2,000 crore on tubewells annually," he said. "As the wells deepen, so does the debt."
Sarabhjit Singh, a schoolteacher in Jaitu, estimates that the average farmer spends more than he makes in order to keep the water supply constant. "Those who have only two acres have no option but to sell and move. Five to 7 per cent of marginal farmers have become landless," he said.
The government has done little to prevent early transplantation of rice. Some measures were taken, such as providing free electricity only after June 10 or June 15, but farmers rarely delay the actual transplantation.
Lack of political will
At a farmers' meeting organised by the Kheti Virasat Mission, Amarjit Singh, a participant from Kapurthala, told Frontline that the rule could not be enforced without sufficient political will. "The Punjab Agriculture University has been saying this for 20 years, but farmers don't listen. Nawashehr was the only exception because it had a firm Deputy Commissioner," he said. "If any farmer transplanted rice before June 15, he would have the fields washed away. This was a stern example to others."
The double-cropping pattern - two major crops a year, both needing a lot of water - exacerbates the crisis. Experts believe that the same yield can be sustained with 30 per cent less water, but this will happen only if the State reviews its power policy.
Professor H.S. Gill, formerly of Punjab University and currently a researcher with the Institute of Development and Communication, Chandigarh, has been studying the `myth and reality' of agriculture in Punjab. "The free power supply leads to wasteful usage. Earlier, tubewells were used like medicine. Now, they are used like food," he said.
However, he does not agree with the dominant negative view of the groundwater situation. "The situation is complex but not as bad as you think. It is true that we have crossed the danger mark in some areas, but in some southern areas the water table is rising. There is even waterlogging," he said. "Is this a good development or a bad one? Who can say what the optimal level of water is? The government has not yet decided where to stabilise the water table."
Nevertheless, it is best to remember that 79 per cent of the State confronts a falling water table wherever the groundwater is fit for irrigation. The 21 per cent of land that has a rising water table lies in the southwestern parts where the water is saline or brackish. It does not help that the average rainfall in Punjab has fallen: the rainfall was 739 mm in 1980 and 315 mm in 2002.
The deadlock
Governments find themselves in the awkward position of risking the electorate's wrath if they do away with free power to farmers or come down hard on tubewell users. The Central government has been trying to regulate the use of groundwater since 1970 through a Model Bill, which was revised in 1992, 1996 and 2005. Only seven States have enacted the law, even though later versions have taken marginal farmers and manually operated devices from the purview of the law.
In response to the Centre's urging, Punjab set up three committees - the Punjab State Water Resources Council chaired by the Chief Minister, the Punjab State Water Resources Committee chaired by the Chief Secretary, and a Technical Advisory Committee. The "Punjab Ground Water Control and Regulation Act - 1998 (Draft)" was approved initially, but in 2003 it was observed that the proposed legislation was "harsh on the users". An expert group set up by the Planning Commission also described the Model Bill as "deeply problematic".
A paper presented by Kuldeep Singh Takshi, chief of the Directorate of Water Resources and Environment, says: "The Committee observed that due evaluation of each of the suggested measures in terms of cost and benefits be carried out and the measures be prioritised along with finding the possibility of funding from the Government of India. Accordingly, action was taken by various offices for finalisation of the above Report, but so far it has not achieved finality. Such evaluation is difficult to be assessed in view of indirect long-term multifarious benefits from various measures."
In simple terms, this means that no government is willing to take any action for fear that it will lose the popular mandate. Instead, the government proposes measures such as artificial recharging, modern methods of rice transplantation and drip irrigation. On its part, the Central Ground Water Authority has made a list of notified blocks where groundwater needs to be urgently regulated. This would mean that nobody could dig new tubewells without permission. However, according to informal sources, Punjab is not positive about regulation.
"The first step would be to register all the tubewells by a certain date, and then prevent further digging. Haryana is making efforts at regulation, but Punjab does not want to talk of water at all," one of them said.
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