Font size:
Print
Tackling India’s Urban Water Crisis
Context:
Urban India faces growing challenges in water availability, quality, distribution, and equitable access.
More on News:
- A widening gap between water demand and supply is exacerbated by reliance on groundwater and inefficient ageing infrastructure causing high water losses.
- Poorly regulated discharge of untreated sewage, industrial effluents, and agricultural runoff further pollutes water bodies, making household-level water treatment necessary in cities.
Impact on Public Health and Marginalised Communities:
- Waterborne Diseases: Water scarcity and contamination are raising the prevalence of waterborne diseases, especially in areas lacking safe drinking water and sanitation.
- Access: Marginalised communities in informal settlements struggle even more to access affordable and safe water.
- Flooding: Inadequate drainage infrastructure also contributes to urban flooding, endangering lives, disrupting livelihoods, and worsening public health risks.
- Climate Impact: Extreme weather events, changing rainfall patterns, and droughts put additional pressure on urban water resources and infrastructure.
- Governance Issues: Weak governance, lack of regulatory framework, and limited institutional capacity hinder effective urban water management and the pursuit of sustainable solutions.
Strategies for Sustainable Urban Water Systems:
- Water Policies: India’s water policies have evolved since the first National Water Policy in 1987, updated in 2002 and 2013 to include climate adaptation, river basin management, aquifer mapping, and community engagement.
- Institutional Reforms: Institutional reforms like river basin organisations and water dispute tribunals have also been proposed.
- Urban Water Sector Reforms: These were advanced by programs such as JNNURM in 2005, which introduced service level benchmarks (SLBs) for water supply and sewerage.
- AMRUT (2015) and AMRUT 2.0 (2021) prioritise SLBs for city utilities and advocate for public-private partnerships to enhance urban infrastructure and services.
Progress and Achievements under AMRUT:
- AMRUT’s first phase (2015-2021) achieved 970,000 water connections and 6.2 million sewerage connections.
- By December 2022, projects worth INR 822 billion were taken up, with INR 327.93 billion spent on 4,676 completed projects.
- Efforts included NRW reduction, rainwater harvesting, billing efficiency improvement, and e-governance integration.
Challenges for a Circular Water Economy:
- Gap: With a 60% gap between wastewater generation and treatment, India faces a major challenge in scaling circular water solutions.
- Infrastructure: High costs, technological barriers, variability in wastewater, skilled workforce shortages, and lack of infrastructure hinder effective recycling.
- Others: Other issues include farmer reluctance to use recycled water, over-reliance on external funding, and limited public awareness about the benefits of circular water practices.
Way Forward:
- Best Practices: Cities in Brazil, Argentina, Senegal, and Peru are exploring circular water economy solutions.
- Decentralised Facilities: To transition to a circular economy, the Indian government must encourage cities to adopt decentralised wastewater facilities, prioritise circular water practices, and offer economic incentives for recycling.
- AMRUT’s funding should be linked to city-level reforms, and Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) need stronger financial and administrative autonomy.
- Constitutional amendments to strengthen city governance for sustainable water management are also recommended.
- Focus on Major Cities for Maximum Impact: With metropolises generating the highest wastewater volumes, interventions should focus on these areas to address urban In
