Unmaking of a water crises

Not much seems to have been learnt,  partly because resolution to the crises rests on the very premise that drove it to the present predicament.

India’s water crises is worse than what it may seem. In effect, it is worsening by the day, each season, and year on year. Post independence, per capita water availability has declined from a high of 4,000 cubic meter in 1947 to an abysmal low of 1,486 cubic meter in 2021. It is an alarming trend, given the accepted global norm being 3,000 cubic meter. Given the country’s annual water endowment of 4 billion cubic meter, the picture one gets to see is that of scarcity amidst plenty.

Statistics reveal only a part of the daily ordeal a sizeable population in the country has to go through, both in urban and rural centres. As household water connections have remained an exercise in numbers, as per capita daily allocation of 135 litres for urban and 55 litres for rural areas is good only on paper but not on the ground. The gap between water haves and have not has only widened. No surprise, therefore, that increasing demand, asymmetric distribution and contaminated supplies have left a large growing population vulnerable to water stress, social conflicts, and medical conditions. Over the decades, programs and projects have delivered promises but not enough water. As a consequence, a country with strong cultural and spiritual connection with water is water stressed.

The solution to the crises may seem obvious, yet it has remained somewhat elusive for the well-entrenched water bureaucracy both at the federal and the state level. As the total precipitation is received during few monsoon months in a year, tapping rainfall into surface storage structures for use during lean season remains a workable solution. Before being subsumed under the urban sprawl, the traditional water tanks peppered across the country had stood us in good nick to even out seasonal and geographical variation in rainfall. Large dams were supposed to have performed better as a replacement, but cumulative storage capacity of these structures has remained below par. As a result, India’s per person surface water storage is an abysmal 150 cubic metre – 10 times less than the global average of 1,500 cubic meter. In comparison, China stores thrice as much while the US stocks ten times more than India. As a consequence, multi-locational hydro-anarchy has been more of a norm than exception as the country inches closer to an abyss. 

Water bureaucracy ought to take the blame for deepening the hydro-logical fault lines created by the British. No wonder, the present water management persists on capital-intensive big engineering structures that cause modifications of the landscape upon which traditional wisdom of eco-region specific water conservation techniques and judicious water use was practiced for centuries. Far from appreciating the hydro-logical diversity and reviving the traditional systems, the water institutions have sought to spread scarce resource across land and across time. Not much seems to have been learnt,  partly because resolution to the crises rests on the very premise that drove it to the present predicament. Thus, the story of water has continued to evolve as an expanding sedentary society negotiates a world of moving water.  

This and much more, Watershed provides a comprehensive assessment of country’s unfolding water crises. With climate change impact getting pronounced, the extremes of drought and floods is bound to expand water insecurity. Amidst the scary scenario, however, the book highlights community initiatives on water conservation that need integration with the beleaguered mainstream water systems, and their possible up-scaling. Making the water sector resilient to externalities of challenges is the running theme across the book as it traverse 4,000 years of country’s water history. It is readable primer on the rich, complex and diverse waterscape that nudges the reader to learn from the past in carving out a water secure future. 

In proposing a checklist of actions, however, the author misses out on the fact that the society has long delegated all decisions on managing water to the water bureaucracy, who gets to decide what happens in everyone’s home. The fundamental question about water is related to power, and only by developing a new social contract with the communities can the water bureaucracy unfold a hybrid water management where power on water is shared for promoting location-specific community-driven initiatives. With water crises on the verge of breaking through the thin walls of political institutions, forging a power-sharing alliance with the communities can usher a new era in water management. Else, individual and community action towards conserving water will remain at the periphery with the political institutions pursuing business-as-usual. Institutional reforms in the water sector can be the first step towards saving the country’s water.     

Watershed: How we destroyed India’s water and how we can save it. 
by Mridula Ramesh 
Hachette, New Delhi 
Extent: 415, Price: Rs. 699.

First published in the Hindustan Times on April 23, 2022.

Getting the most out of what we have!

In a world where growing knowledge confronts as much ignorance, the idea of scarcity offers clues on managing our lives better during abundance.

When an economist and a psychologist come together to undertake an intellectual endeavor, the outcome shatters many myths about everyday living. Together they manage to merge academic rigor to explain the most fundamental problems in all walks of life viewed through the science of scarcity, which the authors claim is still in the making. The lonely are lonely, dieters are plump and busy are busy because they are in the ‘scarcity trap’ and lack the capacity to organize their lives.  

Scarcity captures every mind but the authors stretch the notion of fiscal scarcity to include social scarcity and cognitive scarcity as well as scarcity of time and calories to name a few. The multiple implications of scarcity not only make us dumber but cloud our cognitive abilities to come on top. Far from making people more effective, as many would believe, scarcity leaves us with reduced fluid intelligence and more impulsive actions. Not without reason, scarcity leads us to borrow and pushes us deeper into scarcity. Using stories from daily existence and studies from diverse social settings, Sendhil Mullainathan and Eldar Shafir conclude that the feeling of ‘less’ distorts our vision and judgement. 

Scarcity is loaded with fresh insights, helping the reader pull comparable moments out of one’s own experience. In a world where growing knowledge confronts as much ignorance, the idea of scarcity offers clues on managing our lives better during abundance such that there is no slackness when scarcity confronts us. Scarcity can make us wiser provided trade-off thinking is thoughtfully applied. Afterall, scarcity is largely an outcome of environmental conditions that can be managed. Scarcity should make us experts, even if in a limited manner.

Don’t we all become experts when it comes to managing scarce space in our suitcases before undertaking a journey? Mullainathan and Shafir wonder why can’t this expertise help the poor know the value of a dollar, the busy the value of an hour, and dieters the value of a calorie? In a way, the idea of scarcity offers good news because it can help us organize our lives better and design efficient systems around us. Because, like poverty scarcity is unlikely to go away as abundance and scarcity co-exist in an unholy alliance.  The trouble with scarcity is that it not only captures the mind but perpetuates itself.    

Scarcity is a real page turner, overflowing with fresh insights and simple suggestions to transform the way we live and manage ourselves. If you think traffic on the road is clogged in a scarcity trap and that there is no way out, you may need to put on your ‘scarcity cap’ to wriggle out of it. The authors argue that should all the cars were to go at the same speed, not only will the traffic flow be smooth but more cars can be accommodated on the road as well. It is the variation in speed of cars that causes congestion, as drivers vie for limited space (a reflection of scarcity) on the road. 

Scarcity is often associated with dire consequences but not when it comes to Mullainathan and Shafir who consider it as a perfect trigger to enhance our abilities to make better choices. Scarcity is a must read, brilliant and engaging.   

Scarcity: The True Cost of Not Having Enough
by Sendhil Mullainathan and Eldar Shafir
Penguin, UK
Extent: 288, Price: £9.99