Urban Water Supply and Governance in India 9811638187, 9789811638183

Table of contents :
Preface and Acknowledgements
Contents
About the Authors
List of Figures
List of Tables
1 Introduction
1.1 The Context
1.2 Discourses of Water
1.3 Mapping the Institutional Dimensions of Domestic Water Supply in India
1.4 Urban Water Supply and Images of Water Scarcity
1.5 Aims and Subject Matter of the Book
1.6 A Note on Methodology
1.7 Book Chapters
References
2 Water: Perspectives, Prospects and Reforms in India
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Water in India: A Resource Perspective
2.3 Water in India: Politico-Legal Perspectives
2.4 Water in India: Policy Perspective
2.5 Summarising Policy Reforms in Governance of Water Sector
2.6 Conclusion
References
3 Institutional Reforms and Water Sector Governance: Conceptual Understandings
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Governing the Water Sector: Conceptual Understanding
3.2.1 Distinguishing ‘Government’ from ‘Governance’
3.2.2 Conceptualising Environmental Governance
3.2.3 Conceptualising Water Governance
3.2.4 Good and Effective Water Governance
3.2.5 The Need and Principles of Effective Water Governance
3.3 Institutional Reforms in Water Sector: A Framework
3.3.1 Understanding Water Institutional Reforms
3.4 Conclusion: Water Institution in India
References
4 Methodology and Research Sites
4.1 Introduction
4.2 The Research Process and Methodological Framework
4.3 Sample Distribution and Fieldwork
4.4 Demographic Profile and Water Supply Arrangements of the Sample Cities (Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Kochi)
4.4.1 Ahmedabad
4.4.2 Bengaluru
4.4.3 Hyderabad
4.4.4 Kochi
4.5 Conclusion
References
5 Mapping Urban Water Supply in India: Scenarios and Challenges
5.1 Introduction
5.2 Mapping the Drinking Water Scenario in India
5.2.1 Norms of Water Supply and Coverage
5.2.2 Primary Sources and Location of Drinking Water
5.2.3 Primary Sources and Location of Water in Urban India
5.2.4 Rural–Urban Disparities in Access to Water
5.3 Water Supply Scenario in Indian Cities: Status Report
5.4 Urbanisation and Water Challenge: Evidence from Four Cities Surveyed
5.5 Conclusion
References
6 Availability, Access and Usage of Water: Empirical Evidence from Four Cities
6.1 Introduction
6.2 Socio-Demographic Profile of the Respondents
6.2.1 Social Composition
6.2.2 Living Conditions and Economic Status
6.3 Dilemmas of Water Availability and Access
6.3.1 Access to Urban Water Supply
6.3.2 Multiple Usage and Sources of Water Consumption
6.4 Household Expenditure for Accessing Domestic Water
6.4.1 Cost for Connecting to Network Water Supply
6.4.2 Monthly Household Expenditure for Water
6.5 Water Safety and Quality: Household Perceptions and Measures
6.6 Conclusion
References
7 Unequal Access, Water Scarcity and Everyday Practice of Water
7.1 Introduction
7.2 Everyday Practice of Water: A Conceptual Understanding
7.3 Water Insecurity and Everyday Practice of Water Among Urban Poor
7.3.1 Water Collection as Everyday Practice
7.3.2 Water Collection from a Class and Gender Lens
7.3.3 Coping with Unreliable Water Supply: Storage of Domestic Water
7.4 Negotiating Water Scarcity: Informality and Everyday Practices of Water
7.5 Conclusion
References
8 Governing Urban Water: Institutional Reforms and Urban Water Service Delivery
8.1 Introduction
8.2 Governance Reforms and Institutional Changes in Urban Water Supply System
8.3 An Overview of Reforms and Institutional Arrangements in Urban Water Sector in India
8.4 Institutional Performance in Urban Water Service Delivery
8.4.1 The Efficiency of Water Service Delivery
8.4.2 Effectiveness of Water Service Delivery
8.4.3 Consumer Satisfaction with Water Supply
8.5 Correlation Between Overall Institutional Performance and Effectiveness, Efficiency and Customer Satisfaction
8.6 Conclusion
References
9 Summary and Conclusion
9.1 Recapitulating the Context and Background
9.2 Summary of Findings
9.3 Towards Sustainable and Effective Governance of Urban Water Supply
9.4 Conclusion
References

Citation preview

Satyapriya Rout Ruth Kattumuri

Urban Water Supply and Governance in India

Urban Water Supply and Governance in India

Satyapriya Rout · Ruth Kattumuri

Urban Water Supply and Governance in India

Satyapriya Rout Department of Sociology University of Hyderabad Hyderabad, India

Ruth Kattumuri India Observatory, International Inequalities Institute London School of Economics London, UK

ISBN 978-981-16-3818-3 ISBN 978-981-16-3819-0 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-3819-0 © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore 189721, Singapore

Preface and Acknowledgements

This research was initiated during our brief period of collaboration at Asia Research Centre in London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), London, UK. The Sir Ratan Tata Visiting Fellowship at LSE, London, which the first author held from October 2012 to June 2013, provided the opportunity to conceive the idea of researching the governance of domestic water supply in Indian cities. In this book, we have attempted to engage with three relevant issues of water supply and governance in urban India. First, the book explored the demand and supply trends of domestic water supply in Indian cities by examining the availability, access and usage of water at the household level. The inequalities in access to water, vis-à-vis the adaptive strategies of urban poor to gain water security in their everyday water practices, formed the second core element of this book. While explaining the coping mechanisms and adaptive strategies of urban poor to gain successful access to water, the book deciphered the subtle relations of water and power through decoding ‘water informality’, as practised in urban neighbourhoods. The governance frameworks of water service delivery and institutional performances of urban water utilities formed the third theme of this book. The book is based on a survey of four cities in India, i.e., Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Kochi. Besides, the study is also informed by the authors’ lived experiences regarding water supply and governance in urban India. This book has evolved over a long period of time, and it would not have been possible to reach at this stage without the support and cooperation we received from several individuals and institutions. At the outset, we wish to thank the UGC-UKIERI partnership for the generous grant, which made the field survey possible and supported training opportunity for research assistants. The UGC-UKIERI research grant also made the mobility of the authors to each other’s institutions possible, which helped to a great extent in planning and executing the empirical research. Furthermore, the three workshops conducted with the support of the research grant—first at LSE, London during June 2016, second at University of Hyderabad during August 2016 and the third at National Institute of Urban Affairs (NIUA), Delhi, during August 2016—helped sharpen the

v

vi

Preface and Acknowledgements

perspectives of this publication. The authors would like to thank these institutions and the participants from government, private sector and civil society, at the workshop for their valuable comments and suggestions. Finally, we are also grateful to the British Council in New Delhi for their support throughout this study. We appreciate and thank the officials of water utilities at Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Kochi for their guidance and help in making available the required information about specific cities. We also thank all the respondents of the study for being available to participate in the interview. The research assistance and support from Subhrarajat Balabantaray, Dambarudhara Garada and Bianca Daw for conducting the field survey were central for this study. We hope that they have gained valuable experiences from participating in this study and wish them the very best for achieving their career goals. We would also like to place in record our sincere thanks to the publishing team at Springer for having agreed to publish the book. Without the support and patience of our family and friends, this book would not have reached its current shape. The first author is grateful to his parents, parentsin-law and children—Shyam and Smiley—for their constant encouragement and support. Special thanks are due to Dr. Pratyusna Patnaik, Centre for Panchayati Raj, National Institute of Rural Development & Panchayati Raj (NIRDPR), Hyderabad, for her relentless encouragement, inspiration and support in completing the manuscript of this book. All other usual disclaimers apply. Hyderabad, India London, UK

Satyapriya Rout Ruth Kattumuri

Contents

1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1 The Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.2 Discourses of Water . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.3 Mapping the Institutional Dimensions of Domestic Water Supply in India . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.4 Urban Water Supply and Images of Water Scarcity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.5 Aims and Subject Matter of the Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.6 A Note on Methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.7 Book Chapters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

17 20 23 24 24 26

2 Water: Perspectives, Prospects and Reforms in India . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 Water in India: A Resource Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3 Water in India: Politico-Legal Perspectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4 Water in India: Policy Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.5 Summarising Policy Reforms in Governance of Water Sector . . . . . 2.6 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

29 29 31 45 52 55 58 59

3 Institutional Reforms and Water Sector Governance: Conceptual Understandings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 Governing the Water Sector: Conceptual Understanding . . . . . . . . . . 3.2.1 Distinguishing ‘Government’ from ‘Governance’ . . . . . . . . . 3.2.2 Conceptualising Environmental Governance . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2.3 Conceptualising Water Governance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2.4 Good and Effective Water Governance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2.5 The Need and Principles of Effective Water Governance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3 Institutional Reforms in Water Sector: A Framework . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3.1 Understanding Water Institutional Reforms . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1 1 4

63 63 64 64 67 69 70 71 73 75 vii

viii

Contents

3.4 Conclusion: Water Institution in India . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

78 81

4 Methodology and Research Sites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2 The Research Process and Methodological Framework . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3 Sample Distribution and Fieldwork . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.4 Demographic Profile and Water Supply Arrangements of the Sample Cities (Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Kochi) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.4.1 Ahmedabad . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.4.2 Bengaluru . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.4.3 Hyderabad . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.4.4 Kochi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.5 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

85 85 86 93

5 Mapping Urban Water Supply in India: Scenarios and Challenges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2 Mapping the Drinking Water Scenario in India . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2.1 Norms of Water Supply and Coverage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2.2 Primary Sources and Location of Drinking Water . . . . . . . . . 5.2.3 Primary Sources and Location of Water in Urban India . . . . 5.2.4 Rural–Urban Disparities in Access to Water . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.3 Water Supply Scenario in Indian Cities: Status Report . . . . . . . . . . . 5.4 Urbanisation and Water Challenge: Evidence from Four Cities Surveyed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.5 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Availability, Access and Usage of Water: Empirical Evidence from Four Cities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.2 Socio-Demographic Profile of the Respondents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.2.1 Social Composition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.2.2 Living Conditions and Economic Status . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.3 Dilemmas of Water Availability and Access . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.3.1 Access to Urban Water Supply . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.3.2 Multiple Usage and Sources of Water Consumption . . . . . . . 6.4 Household Expenditure for Accessing Domestic Water . . . . . . . . . . 6.4.1 Cost for Connecting to Network Water Supply . . . . . . . . . . . 6.4.2 Monthly Household Expenditure for Water . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.5 Water Safety and Quality: Household Perceptions and Measures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.6 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

97 98 104 110 117 120 121 125 125 126 126 127 131 134 138 143 157 157 159 159 160 160 161 163 165 171 178 179 183 192 203

Contents

ix

References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204 7 Unequal Access, Water Scarcity and Everyday Practice of Water . . . 7.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.2 Everyday Practice of Water: A Conceptual Understanding . . . . . . . . 7.3 Water Insecurity and Everyday Practice of Water Among Urban Poor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.3.1 Water Collection as Everyday Practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.3.2 Water Collection from a Class and Gender Lens . . . . . . . . . . 7.3.3 Coping with Unreliable Water Supply: Storage of Domestic Water . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.4 Negotiating Water Scarcity: Informality and Everyday Practices of Water . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.5 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Governing Urban Water: Institutional Reforms and Urban Water Service Delivery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.2 Governance Reforms and Institutional Changes in Urban Water Supply System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.3 An Overview of Reforms and Institutional Arrangements in Urban Water Sector in India . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.4 Institutional Performance in Urban Water Service Delivery . . . . . . . 8.4.1 The Efficiency of Water Service Delivery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.4.2 Effectiveness of Water Service Delivery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.4.3 Consumer Satisfaction with Water Supply . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.5 Correlation Between Overall Institutional Performance and Effectiveness, Efficiency and Customer Satisfaction . . . . . . . . . . 8.6 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Summary and Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.1 Recapitulating the Context and Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.2 Summary of Findings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.3 Towards Sustainable and Effective Governance of Urban Water Supply . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.4 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

207 207 208 214 214 218 225 236 248 250 259 259 261 262 265 267 271 274 280 284 286 289 289 290 296 302 302

About the Authors

Satyapriya Rout is an Associate Professor in Sociology at University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad, India. Previously he taught at the department of Sociology, Banaras Hindu University (BHU), Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India. He held Sir Ratan Tata Fellowship at the Asia Research Centre, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK, during 2012–2013, where he carried out post-doctoral research on social inequality and access to water. He was a visiting fellow at Institute for Advance Studies in Humanities (IASH) University of Edinburgh, UK during April— June 2014, for a research study on understanding global-local linkages in contemporary environmental movements. He was awarded Indo-Thai Visiting Fellowship from Indian Council for Social science Research (ICSSR) in 2010 to carry out a study on community forestry in Thailand. His research areas span: social inequality access to water, community based natural resource governance focusing on water and forest, environmental movements, and decentralised governance and development. Ruth Kattumuri is Founder and Co-Chair of the India Observatory at the London School of Economics (LSE) and is an Associate of the Grantham Research Institute. She is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, UK and is also a Cambridge Commonwealth Fellow. Prior to joining the LSE, she was Professor in Computer Science and Statistics at Madras Christian College, India. She has been awarded the Mahatma Gandhi Pravasi Award in recognition of her achievements and contributions for India’s development. Kattumuri is involved in transdisciplinary evidence based research, teaching, publication, public policy influence globally. Her recent work pertains to adaptation and mitigation for climate change, covering the interface with food, water and energy security; renewable technologies and low-carbon energy transitions; urban water resource management and governance; urban planning; and inclusive population development. With her extensive experience she has been pioneering several innovative international programmes for knowledge exchange, capacity building and human capital development.

xi

List of Figures

Fig. 1.1 Fig. 1.2 Fig. 2.1

Fig. 2.2

Fig. 2.3 Fig. 2.4 Fig. 2.5 Fig. 2.6 Fig. 3.1 Fig. 4.1 Fig. 4.2 Fig. 4.3 Fig. 4.4 Fig. 4.5 Fig. 4.6 Fig. 4.7

Fig. 5.1

Discourses of water and discourse coalitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Institutional mapping of domestic water supply and possible implications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . State-wise division of Replenishable Groundwater (RGW) Resource of India (km3 /year). Source Water & Related Statistics, 2015. Central Water Commission, Govt. of India . . . . Net Irrigated Area by Source during 1950–2013 (area in ‘000 hectares) Source Agricultural Statistics, Directorate of Economics & Statistics, Ministry of Agriculture, GoI . . . . . . . Population growth and per capita availability of water in India, 1951–2100 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Future water scenario in River Basins of India, 2010–2050 . . . . . India’s future water requirements. Source NCIWRDP (1999) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Proportional changes in India’s future water requirements (in km3 ) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Distribution of water institution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Map of India showing the research sites. Source freeworldmaps.net . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Map showing wards covered for fieldwork in Ahmedabad . . . . . Map showing wards covered for fieldwork in Bengaluru . . . . . . . Map showing wards covered for fieldwork in Hyderabad . . . . . . Map showing wards covered for fieldwork in Kochi . . . . . . . . . . Area covered by BWSSB. Source BWSSB website (https:// www.bwssb.gov.in/assets/images/aboutbwssb1.png) . . . . . . . . . . Area vovered by HMWSSB. Source GHMC website, https://www.ghmc.gov.in/Documents/NEW%20ZONE S,CIRCLE%20MAP.jpg . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Location of water source for households in urban areas of India, 2001–2011 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

12 20

37

38 40 43 44 45 75 92 95 97 99 101 108

113 135

xiii

xiv

Fig. 5.2

Fig. 5.3 Fig. 5.4 Fig. 5.5

Fig. 5.6 Fig. 5.7 Fig. 5.8 Fig. 5.9 Fig. 5.10 Fig. 5.11

Fig. 5.12 Fig. 5.13

Fig. 5.14 Fig. 5.15

Fig. 5.16

List of Figures

Households by source of water in urban areas of India as per JMP-WHO service ladder. Source Census of India, 2011. Note (i) Safely managed source: tap water, covered well, hand pump and tube well/borehole within premises; (ii) Basic services: tap water, covered well, hand pump and tube well/borehole near the premises; (iii) Limited services: tap water covered well, hand pump and tube well/borehole away from premises; (iv) Unimproved: uncovered wells (within, near and away from premises); (v) Surface water: springs, river, canal, pond and other sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Rural–urban disparity in access to sources of water, 2011. Source Census of India, 2011 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Disparity in location of drinking water source in rural and urban areas. Source Census of India, 2011 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Disparity in source of water in rural and urban areas as per JMP-WHO service benchmark. Source Census of India, 2011 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Average hours of water supply and annual rainfall . . . . . . . . . . . . Consumption and production of water across cities . . . . . . . . . . . Unaccounted for Water (UFW) and metering of service connections across cities. Source ADB, 2007 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Staffing pattern of urban water utilities (staff per 1000 connections). Source ADB, 2007 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Changing land-use pattern of Ahmedabad, 1999–2011. Data Source (Goswami & Khire, 2016) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Projected water demand, present water withdrawal and design withdrawals (installed capacity) of surface water sources of Ahmedabad. Data Source AMC website (proactive disclosure under RTI), https://ahmedabadcity. gov.in/portal/jsp/Static_pages/water_project.jsp#Infrastru cture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Changing land-use pattern of Bengaluru, 1973–2020. Data source (Ramachandra et al., 2016) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Water demand and supply projection for Bengaluru, 2010– 2035. Data source UN, 2019 for population projection. BWSSB website (https://www.bwssb.gov.in) for water supply projection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Changing land-use pattern of Hyderabad, 2005–2016. Data source (Gumma et al., 2017) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Projected water demand, present water withdrawal and design withdrawals of reservoirs in Hyderabad. Data source (HMWSSB, 2017) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Augmentation of water supply and distance of source from Bengaluru city . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

135 137 138

139 141 141 142 143 146

148 148

150 152

153 156

List of Figures

Fig. 5.17 Fig. 6.1 Fig. 6.2 Fig. 6.3 Fig. 6.4 Fig. 6.5 Fig. 6.6 Fig. 7.1 Fig. 8.1

Augmentation of water supply and distance of source from Hyderabad city . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Access to public water supply of household. Source Field survey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dependence upon single versus multiple sources of water. Source Field survey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Absolute versus relative expenditure of water. Source Field survey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Level of awareness about health hazards of contaminated water across cities. Source Field survey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Perception of water safety across cities. Source Field survey . . . Practice of water purification across cities. Source Field survey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Household income, educational attainment and storage infrastructure (OHT). Source Field Survey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Performance scores of water utilities by their institutional arrangements. Source Field Survey of four cities . . . . . . . . . . . . .

xv

157 166 169 190 193 197 199 235 280

List of Tables

Table 1.1 Table 1.2 Table 2.1 Table 2.2 Table 2.3 Table 2.4 Table 2.5 Table 2.6 Table 2.7 Table 2.8 Table 2.9 Table 2.10 Table 4.1 Table 4.2

Table 4.3

Table 4.4

Table 4.5

Table 4.6 Table 4.7 Table 4.8

Urbanisation trends in India since independence . . . . . . . . . . . . Water withdrawals by sector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Water reserves of the earth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Availability and withdrawal of freshwater . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . India’s water budget . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Rivers, Canals and other inland water bodies of India . . . . . . . . State-wise distribution of inland water resources of India . . . . . Basin-wise water resources potential of India (km3 /year) . . . . . Groundwater resources of India (km3 /year) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Per capita Average Annual Availability of Water in India during 1951–2100 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Per capita availability of water in 20 River Basins of India during 2010, 2025 and 2050 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Future water requirement of India (in km3 ) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Water availability scenario of Indian cities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Zones and wards covered for fieldwork in Ahmedabad (Figures in parenthesis indicate the total number of sample households) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Zones and wards covered for empirical study in Bengaluru (Figures in parenthesis indicate the total number of sample households) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Zones and wards covered for empirical study in Hyderabad (Figures in parenthesis indicate the total number of sample households) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Zones and wards covered for empirical study in Kochi (Figures in parenthesis indicate the total number of sample households) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Population growth of Ahmedabad (1901–2011) . . . . . . . . . . . . Water sources of Ahmedabad city . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dependence of surface and groundwater sources in Ahmedabad . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

2 18 30 30 33 34 35 36 38 40 42 44 89

94

96

98

100 102 103 103 xvii

xviii

Table 4.9 Table 4.10 Table 4.11 Table 4.12 Table 4.13 Table 4.14 Table 4.15 Table 4.16 Table 4.17 Table 4.18 Table 4.19 Table 4.20 Table 5.1 Table 5.2 Table 5.3 Table 5.4 Table 5.5

Table 5.6 Table 5.7 Table 5.8 Table 5.9

Table 5.10 Table 5.11 Table 5.12 Table 5.13 Table 5.14 Table 5.15 Table 5.16

List of Tables

Water storage capacity of Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Basic facts of water supply by Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Decade-wise expansion of Bengaluru city (1880–1950) . . . . . . Population growth of Bengaluru (1901–2011) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Water sources of Bengaluru city . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Basic facts of water supply by BWSSB . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Population growth of Hyderabad (1901–2011) . . . . . . . . . . . . . Water source and supply in Hyderabad city . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Basic facts of water supply by HMWSSB . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Population growth of Kochi region (1971–2011) . . . . . . . . . . . . Details of source and production of water for Kochi . . . . . . . . . Details of domestic connections and public stand-posts in Kochi region . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Urban water supply norms by CPHEEO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Progress of rural water supply in India (2012–2017) . . . . . . . . . Classification of sources of water . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Main source of drinking water for households in India, 2001, 2011 and 2018 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Location of main source of drinking water for households in India, 2011 (Figures in parenthesis are percentages to the total households) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Households by location of main source of drinking water, 2011, 2015 and 2018 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Number of urban areas/towns in India, 2001–2011 . . . . . . . . . . Main source of drinking water of households in urban areas of India . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Location of main source of drinking water of households in urban areas of India, 2011 (Figures in parenthesis are percentages to the total households) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Main source of drinking water of households in rural areas of India . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Duration and frequency of water supply in 270 Urban Centres . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Decadal growth rate (in %) of the population of four cities (1911–2011) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Current and future water demand scenario of Ahmedabad (in million litres per day) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Water demand, supply and UFW in Bengaluru (in million litres per day—MLD) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Current and future water demand scenario of Bengaluru (in million litres per day) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Current and future water demand scenario of Hyderabad (in million litres per day) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

104 104 106 107 110 111 112 116 117 118 120 121 126 127 128 129

130 130 132 133

134 136 140 144 147 149 150 152

List of Tables

Table 5.17 Table 6.1 Table 6.2 Table 6.3 Table 6.4 Table 6.5 Table 6.6 Table 6.7 Table 6.8 Table 6.9 Table 6.10 Table 6.11 Table 6.12 Table 6.13 Table 6.14 Table 6.15 Table 6.16 Table 6.17 Table 6.18 Table 6.19 Table 6.20

Table 6.21 Table 6.22 Table 6.23

xix

Current and future water demand scenario of Kochi (in million litres per day) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Socio-Demographic composition of the respondents . . . . . . . . . Living condition and economic status of the respondents . . . . . Socio-economic variability in access to public water supply (all values are in percentage) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Access to (public) water supply and variations based on income and educational attainment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Primary Source of water (in case of multiple sources) (all figures are in percentages) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Household income (per month in |) and single or multiple sources of water . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . City-wise sources of water for drinking (all the figures are in percentage) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sources of water for drinking based on income categories (all the figures are in percentage) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . City-wise sources of water for bathing (all the figures are in percentage) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Income category-wise sources of water for bathing (all the figures are in percentage) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . City-wise sources of water for cooking (all the figures are in percentage) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sources of water for cooking by income categories (all the figures are in percentage) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . City-wise source of water for cleaning (all the figures are in percentage) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Income category-wise sources of water for cleaning (all the figures are in percentage) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Multiple usages and sources of water (all the figures are in percentages, n = 3714) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Charges for obtaining a new water connection in Bengaluru and Hyderabad . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . City-wise expenditure for getting a new water connection . . . . City-wise expenditure for new connection as a percentage to monthly income (all figures are in percentages) . . . . . . . . . . . Household income and cost of obtaining a new water connection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Percentage of monthly income spent for getting water connection by household income (all the figures are in percentages) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Water tariff structure in Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Kochi . . . . Minimum reported cost of water for a consumption of 25 kl per month . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . City-wise monthly expenditure for water . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

154 162 164 167 168 170 170 172 173 174 175 175 176 176 177 178 180 181 182 182

183 185 186 187

xx

Table 6.24 Table 6.25 Table 6.26 Table 6.27 Table 6.28 Table 6.29

Table 6.30 Table 6.31 Table 6.32 Table 6.33 Table 6.34 Table 7.1 Table 7.2 Table 7.3 Table 7.4 Table 7.5 Table 7.6 Table 7.7 Table 7.8 Table 7.9 Table 7.10 Table 7.11 Table 7.12 Table 7.13 Table 7.14

List of Tables

Monthly Expenditure for water across socio-economic categories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Households’ living conditions and expenditure for water . . . . . Absolute and relative expenditure for water for various socio-economic groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Household income and percentage of water expenditure to monthly income (all the figures are in percentages) . . . . . . . Correlation between relative expenses of water and other socio-economic variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Whether or not they are aware about health hazards of contaminated water based on socio-economic background (all values are in percentage) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Socio-economic variability in perception about water safety and quality (all values are in percentage) . . . . . . . . . . . . . Water purification technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Different methods of purification across cities (in %) . . . . . . . . Socio-economic variability in practice of water purification (all values are in percentage) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Water purification practices related to awareness and perception about water safety . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Everyday practice of collecting water (all the figures are in percentages) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Distance covered to collect water across cities . . . . . . . . . . . . . Socio-economic variables and distance covered to collect water . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Social background of households and water collection practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Person responsible for collecting water . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Social background of households and water collection practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Social background of households and information regarding water supply . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Social background of households and following of timings of water supply . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Large storage infrastructure in households across the cities . . . Smaller water storage devices in households across the cities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Adaptation strategies for coping with unreliable water supply . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Social background of households and water storage infrastructure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Social background of households and water storage devices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Correlation between large storage infrastructure (OHT) based on education and income . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

188 189 190 191 191

194 196 199 200 201 203 216 217 218 220 222 224 227 228 229 230 232 233 234 236

List of Tables

Table 7.15 Table 7.16 Table 7.17 Table 8.1 Table 8.2 Table 8.3 Table 8.4 Table 8.5 Table 8.6 Table 8.7 Table 8.8 Table 8.9 Table 8.10 Table 8.11 Table 8.12 Table 8.13 Table 8.14 Table 8.15 Table 8.16 Table 8.17 Table 8.18

Table 8.19

Table 9.1

xxi

Socio-economic categories and lived experience of water shortage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Urban water supply matrix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dual circuit of urban water . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Governance reforms in urban water supply systems in India . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Broad array of institutional arrangements for urban water supply in India . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Nature of water scarcity vis-à-vis institutional arrangements of four cities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Institutional differences in five indicators of efficiency of water supply . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ANOVA comparison of efficiency scores of water supply for three institutional types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . One-way ANOVA of overall levels of efficiency of water supply . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ANOVA comparison of overall efficiency scores of water supply of three institutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Institutional differences in five indicators of effectiveness of water supply . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ANOVA comparison of effectiveness scores of water supply of three institutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . One-way ANOVA of overall levels of effectiveness of water supply . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ANOVA comparison of overall effectiveness scores of water supply for three institutional types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Institutional differences in levels of satisfaction over water supply . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ANOVA comparison of levels of satisfaction of water supply for three institutional types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . One-way ANOVA of overall levels of satisfaction of water supply . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ANOVA comparison of overall levels of satisfaction with water supply of three institutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . One-way ANOVA of overall performance of water supply of three institutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ANOVA comparison of the overall performance of water supply of three institutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Correlation between the overall performance of water supply with indicators of efficiency, effectiveness and customer satisfaction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Levels of correlation between the performance of water supply with indicators of efficiency, effectiveness and customer satisfaction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Urban water demand management measures and strategies . . .

238 243 246 264 265 266 268 269 270 270 272 273 273 274 277 278 279 279 281 281

282

283 301

Chapter 1

Introduction

1.1 The Context Urbanisation and related infrastructural changes have indeed been the defining characteristics of the demographic and socio-ecological changes of post-colonial societies, structuring their social and economic transformations during the last six to seven decades. World population data indicate more people are living in urban areas than in rural areas since 2007, when for the first time in history, the global urban population outnumbered the global rural population. While in 1950, less than onethird of the world population lived in urban settlements, around 55% of the world’s population currently live in urban areas, which is further expected to increase to 68% by 2050. Worldwide, cities added more than 2 billion people from 1950 to 2000 and are expected to add another 2.5 billion to the world’s urban population by 2050 (UN, 2019). It is also estimated that cities of developing countries are likely to account for 95% of this increase (Rees, 2006), with just India and China contributing to more than one-third of this urban growth. While the rate of global urban growth is now declining from 2.6 to 2.2% per year worldwide, the sheer number of people being added to cities continue to grow rapidly. As of 2016, there were already 512411 cities with more than aover one million people and 19 megacities with over 10 million (Catley-Carlson, 2000), which is projected to increase to 43 by 2030 as per United Nation’s World Urbanization Prospects (The world cities in 2016, https://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/publicati ons/pdf/urbanization/the_worlds_cities_in_2016_data_booklet.pdf). Consistent with global trends India has been experiencing rapid urbanisation. During the time of independence, India had only five cities with more than one million population (1951 Census), which increased to 35 by 2001. The census of India 2011 refers to 53 cities as million-plus cities, which is estimated to increase to 70 by 2030. Likewise, three cities in India (Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata) had more than 10 million people as per the 2011 census. In contrast, it is estimated that by 2030 India will have seven cities with more than 10 million population (UN, 2016). The share of the urban population of India, which is currently 31% (Census, © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 S. Rout and R. Kattumuri, Urban Water Supply and Governance in India, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-3819-0_1

1

2

1 Introduction

Table 1.1 Urbanisation trends in India since independence Census year

Urban population (in million)

Per cent urban

Decennial growth rate

Number of towns/UAs

1951

62.44

17.29

41.42

2,843

1961

78.94

17.97

26.41

2,365

1971

109.11

19.91

38.23

2,590

1981

159.46

23.34

46.14

3,378

1991

217.18

25.72

36.19

3,768

2001

286.12

27.86

31.47

5,161

2011

377.1

31.16

31.8

7,935

Source Provisional Tables released by Census of India, 2011

2011), could potentially cross 40% by 2030, with over 200 million getting added to the urban population during this period. As evident from Table 1.1, the number of towns and Urban Agglomerations (UAs) has increased from 2365 in 1961 to 7,935 in 2011, showing more than threefold growth over 50 years. Likewise, India’s urban population grew more than four times during the same period, from 78.94 million to 377.1 million between 1961 and 2011. The constant trends of India’s urbanisation since independence notwithstanding, it is interesting to observe the nature of urban growth in recent decades. India’s urban population counts for 377.1 million as per the 2011 census, with 31.16% of the total population of India residing in urban areas. During the years from 2001 to 2011, around 90.89 million people were added to urban areas, which is more than the absolute increase of 90.47 million in the rural population over the same period. The decadal growth of urban population from 2001 to 2011 was 31.8%, which was more than 2.5 times the corresponding decadal growth of 12.18% for rural population during the same period. It is also worth mentioning that 12.18% of rural decadal population growth during 2001—2011 indicated a sharp decline from the 18.09% increase over the period 1991—2001. In contrast, the urban population grew steadily during the decades, showing a marginal increase from 31.47% to 31.8% over the same period (Census of India, 2011). A comparison of increase in population in rural and urban areas in India as per the 2011 Census indicates that for the first time since independence, the absolute increase in population was more in urban areas than in rural areas, with a corresponding increase in urban population from 27.86% to 31.86 during 2001 to 2011. Along with an absolute increase in urban population, the number of towns increased from 5,161 in 2001 to 7,935 in 2011, adding 2,774 new towns over the decade, including 242 statutory towns and 2532 census towns.1 These figures indicate increasing trends of 1

The Census of India defines towns/urban areas as follows: (a) All statutory places with a municipality, corporation, cantonment board or notified town area committees, etc. (b) A place satisfying the following three criteria simultaneously: (i) a minimum population of 5000, (ii) at least 75% of male working population engaged in non-agricultural pursuits and (iii) a density of population of at

1.1 The Context

3

urbanisation in India through population growth, growing migration to urban areas and categorisation of new areas as ‘urban’. The core subject matter of this book does not pertain to the dynamics of urban growth in India. Instead, the book probes the fundamental question of access to water resources for a rapidly growing urban India. It is apparent that the growing urban population calls for an unprecedented increase in urban infrastructure and corresponding pressure on natural resources to match the ever-mounting requirements of a city. Increasing urbanisation, coupled with changes in land and water use pattern, industrialisation, economic development, lifestyle changes, and more importantly, population growth, has resulted in a substantial increase in demand for fresh water in India. Consequently, urban water stress is emerging as one of the serious features of the water crisis in India today (Kumar, 2014). According to the data tabled in the Indian Parliament by the Ministry of Urban Development, residents of 22 out of 32 major cities of India have to deal with daily water shortages, with Jamshedpur being among the most stressed city with a demand and supply gap of 70% (Das, 2013). The crisis of access to water was also reported to be acute in cities like Kanpur, Asansol, Dhanbad, Meerut, Faridabad, Visakhapatnam, Madurai and Hyderabad, where water supply fails to meet nearly 30% of the demand. Further, a NITI Ayog report—Composite Water Management Index—also mentions that by 2020– 21 major cities of India, including Delhi, Bengaluru and Hyderabad, are expected to reach zero groundwater level, affecting access for 100 million people (NITI Ayog, 2018). The Nature Conservancy’s study on top 20 water stress cities of the world, which was published in the Journal Global Environmental Change, lists five Indian cities—Delhi, Kolkota, Chennai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad, with Delhi, the National Capital of India, being the world’s second most water-stressed city, just behind Tokyo (Mcdonald et al., 2014). Besides the absolute scarcity of water and decreasing per capita supply, deterioration of quality and reliability, increase in Unaccounted For Water (UFW), growing inequality in access, inefficient pricing of water are identified as some of the challenges of the urban water sector in India (Mukherjee et al., 2010). Consequently, the performance of water supply system in urban areas in India has remained inadequate, characterised by insufficient, irregular and intermittent supplies, massive loss in the water distribution system, inadequate infrastructure affecting coverage, especially for the urban poor in slum localities and deteriorating cost recovery resulting in financially unsustainable water utilities. (Aggarwal et al., 2013; Kumar, 2014). The relative importance of water in maintaining the economic and health conditions of people reiterates the seriousness of availability or lack of it to the population at large. Besides its productive (agriculture and industry) and consumptive usages, water availability has several other implications, which accelerates the seriousness of the problem. It is estimated that 70% of disease in human beings are due to consumption of uncleaned water (Shaban, 2008). The additional health expenditures arising from consuming uncleaned water and the loss of income due to abstinence least 400 per sq. km. An Urban Agglomeration (UA) is defined as a continuous urban spread constituting a town and its adjoining Urban Outgrowths (OGs), or two or more physically contiguous towns together and any adjoining urban outgrowth of such towns.

4

1 Introduction

from work due to illness contribute to the vicious circle of poverty. Further, access to water has a significant bearing upon access to education of children of poorer households both in urban and rural areas, where children, especially girls, are held back at home to collect water whenever it is available. Collecting water for daily needs often consumes precious time, affecting income-earning opportunities and outside movement for many poor households, especially women. Access to safe, adequate and continuous supply of water, therefore, not only address the consumptive usage of water but also have larger implications for human development, more so in a country like India, where a significant proportion of the population has to negotiate their day-to-day challenges of poverty, livelihoods, health and well-being.

1.2 Discourses of Water It will not be an exaggeration to say that concerns for global environmental challenges since the post-cold war era are socially constructed.2 However, the social construction of environmental problems does not necessarily mean to question the existential reality of these problems. As Dryzek writes, “just because something is socially interpreted does not mean it is unreal. Pollution does cause illness, species do become extinct, ecosystems cannot absorb stress indefinitely, tropical forests are disappearing” (Dryzek, 2013: 12). However, what is important is how people make use of these realities to put forth their claims. In other words, whether or not an empirical reality is perceived as an environmental problem depends on the narrative in which it is discussed and communicated to others. Indeed, a long queue of women and girls with their empty vessels near the only municipality public water tap or the sight of pandemonium to collect water from a municipality water tanker in an urban slum are not merely social constructs, but the point is how one makes sense of them. In that respect, there are many possible ‘constructed’ realities. One may see the long queue of women with empty vessels near public tap as a product of water scarcity caused by limited investment in delivering water services to the urban poor. One may perceive water scarcity as a physical water shortage due to depleting groundwater table and changing climatic conditions. The sight of chaos over much-awaited water tanker in an urban slum may prompt one to perceive water as a finite economic good, and therefore, should be used rationally; while someone else may invoke the idea of water as a fundamental human right, and therefore should be made freely available to all by the state. Examples like these narrate the changing perceptions of the role of language in constructing reality in social and political life. In such social constructions, language does not simply remain a medium to describe reality but becomes an instrument to create alternative constructions of reality. Hajer (1993) pointed out that unlike the positivist tradition in social sciences, in which language was seen as a neutral 2

In sociology, social constructivism is an approach propounded by Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann, which considers reality to be socially constructed through interactions (Berger and Luckmann, 1966). For a discussion on realism versus constructivism debate in environmental sociology, see Hannigan (1995).

1.2 Discourses of Water

5

system that described the social world, in the post-positivist social sciences, language lost the neutral status and itself became problematised. “Language is recognised as a medium, a system of signification through which actors not simply describe but create the world” (Hajer, 1993: 44). For instance, in the narratives of water scarcity, dried taps, long ques awaiting water tankers are given certain meanings. They no longer remain as incidents; they highlight a structural problem: that water does not always flow according to the laws of the hydrological cycle, as access to water is determined through layers of structured power relations that are embedded in society, as well as through the physical challenges of water availability, which relates water scarcity to the larger environmental crises of a growing urban and industrial society. An analysis of shifting narratives and discursive constructions of social phenomenon manifested through the skilful use of language and meanings—or discourse analysis—often helps assess public policy by extending new tools to examine how certain perspectives are structured, reproduced and dominant narratives emerge. Examination of these discursive discourses of water, such as awaiting ques of women near public taps and public fights for access to water, has significant implications for the empirical reality of water scarcity, as they raise pertinent questions such as What produced the reality? Who is responsible? What can and should be done? In this section, we attempt to examine the major discourses of water that have evolved in recent decades. A study of discourses of water will help to understand not just languages, which describe the competing perspectives of water, but more importantly, the underlying power relations, which produce and popularise these discourses; the positional advantages from which these discourses come from; and the counter-positions which they intend to nullify. As Michael Billig writes, “to understand the meaning of a discourse in an argumentative context, one should not examine the words within that discourse….. One should also consider the positions which are being criticised, or against which a justification is being mounted. Without knowing these counter-positions, the argumentative meaning will be lost” (Billig, 1987: 91). It is, however, better to begin with a conceptual understanding of discourse and discourse analysis and then, perhaps, to proceed to underscore the environmental discourses in general and discourses on water in particular. What Are ‘Discourse’ and ‘Discourse Analysis’? The everyday use of the term discourse (often interchangeably) as debate or discussion notwithstanding, ‘discourse’ has a deep-rooted meaning in linguistics and social sciences. In its simplest sense, discourse may be understood as ‘a sum of communicative interaction’ (Sharp & Richardson, 2001), arising out of spoken language such as talk or speeches or text. Combining conversations, speeches, articles and statements about ideas, concepts and categories of any social phenomena can be regarded as discourse. In the context of public policymaking, policy discourse would mean an exchange of ideas and communications that give shape to a particular debate in the policymaking process. Hajer and Versteeg define discourse as “an ensemble of ideas, concepts and categories through which meaning is given to social and physical phenomenon, and which is produced and reproduced through an identifiable set of practices” (Hajer & Versteeg, 2005: 175). Discourse can be distinguished from

6

1 Introduction

related terms such as discussion and deliberation. While discussions in discourse have their argumentative rationality, in deliberation, discussions are primarily inclusive, reciprocal, where participants can learn through dialogue and bring consensus over an issue. Discourse, in this sense, is not just an exchange of communication, but a complex phenomenon that pertains to certain domains of language, ideology and practice, and is created by relations of power and knowledge. In the policy context, discourses frame certain problems and emphasise certain aspects of a situation over others. Discourse analysis, which is used as a qualitative research method in the disciplines of linguistics and social sciences, involves a critical analysis of spoken and written languages of a discourse. It is the study of languages used in an interaction, which produce a coherent perspective to a social phenomenon, and can be placed in interpretive and social-constructivist tradition in social sciences. Arguing from an anti-essentialist perspective, social constructionism unfolds the existence of multiple, often conflicting, socially constructed realities rather than a single ‘the’ reality, governed by unchangeable natural laws. In other words, the reality is perceived as socially constructed. Wetherell et al. (2001) identify five traditions of discourse analysis, such as (i) conversation analysis, (ii) socio-linguistics, (iii) discursive psychology, (iv) critical discourse analysis and (v) Foucauldian discourse analysis. While conversation analysis is used to examine ‘naturally occurring interactions’ of everyday language use, socio-linguistic analysis investigates the manner in which culture and society affect language use (Wetherell et al., 2001). Critical discourse analysis focuses on social power in the production of the discourse and studies the way in which ideology, identity and inequality are (re)enacted through texts produced in social and political contexts (Van Dijk, 2001). Here, the language of discourse is seen as crucial in constructing and sustaining ideologies, which in turn, are seen as important in establishing and maintaining social identities and inequalities (Wodak & Meyer, 2001). In critical discourse analysis, discourse is considered as socially conditioned as well as constructed, where the language used in discourse “play a key role in maintaining and legitimising inequality, injustice and oppression in society” (Van Leeuwen, 2006: 294). Argued from a post-structuralist perspective, the Foucauldian approach to discourse analysis focuses on the role of discourse and structure in producing and reproducing power relations in society. Foucauldian discourse analysis examines the ways in which “knowledge is put to work through discursive practices in specific institutional settings to regulate the conduct of others” (Hall, 2001: 75). In this sense, discourses constitute both language and practice and produce both knowledge and meaning through their connection to power in society. Discourses, in the Foucauldian sense, may, therefore, be defined as “socially grounded interpretative frameworks, which act as powerful forms of knowledge, which structure what can be thought, said and done by social actors” (Meinhof & Richardson, 1994: 22). Discourses become “an entity of repeated linguistic articulation, material practice and power rationality configuration” (Sharp & Richardson, 2001: 197), which shape individual identities by delimiting and conditioning thoughts and actions. For Foucault, power is central

1.2 Discourses of Water

7

to the production of discourse, and language used in any discourse may be viewed as a manifestation of power. It is both a reflection of power and a medium through which power is exercised in society. In the context of policy analysis and assessment, Foucauldian discourse analysis may suggest that different systems of meaning, argumentative positions or discourse compete for influence in policymaking. Consequently, reforms in policy may be conceived of as shits in the relative influence of different discourses. It also suggests that rather than examining the truth of any policy discourse, we should examine how, why and by whom truth is attributed to particular arguments in a policy context and not the other. Perhaps one of the succinct influences of the Foucauldian approach to environmental policy research is Martin Hajer’s work on the acid rain controversy in Britain and the Netherlands (Hajer, 1995). In Hajer’s work, acid rain controversy is used to reflect upon the process in which a pragmatic approach to environmental policy gave way to ecological modernisation during the 1980s. Hajer approached environmental policymaking neither as a rational scientific process nor as a rational deliberative process; but “conceptualised environmental planning and policymaking as being constructed on a field of a power struggle between different interests, where knowledge and truth are contested, and the rationality of policymaking is itself exposed as a focus of conflict” (Sharp & Richardson, 2001: 198). In the context of water, for instance, Foucauldian discourse analysis, therefore, suggests rather than inquiring about the empirical validity of scarcity of water, we must examine why and how certain discourses of water scarcity become dominant, from which position these discourses come from and by whom they are constituted a near-total hegemonic position. Such a perspective can help us to understand interpretative environmental policy processes, in which environmental problems such as water scarcity is viewed as being conditioned by relations of power and rationality of the existing social order. Environmental Discourses Environmental discourses may mean an ensemble of linguistic articulations concerning the relationship between human and natural environments. Muhlhausler and Peace, in their attempt to delimit the salient properties of environmental discourse, highlight the anthropocentric tendency of the discourse to equate the notion of the environment with something that sustains and pleases human life. Further, they argue that the contemporary environmental discourses tend to agree on conditions of widespread uncertainty and risk, which has led to the construction of the discourses with certain rhetoric and narratives (Mühlhäusler & Peace, 2006). The dominance of anthropocentric discourse also becomes explicit from the manner in which the competing discourse has focused on managing the changing environment to avoid situations of risk. However, environmental discourses put forth diverse perspectives and produce often contradicting views about nature. While some scholars have analysed discourses of a particular issue (such as ozone layer depletion), others have analysed the vast array of discourses concerning environmental change. For example, Maarten Hajer, in his seminal work, demonstrates the transformations of discourse in acid rain in Britain and the Netherlands (Hajer, 1993). Likewise,

8

1 Introduction

Karen Litfin discussed changing international discourse about global ozone layer depletion and reiterated how scientific knowledge could be used to gain political clout (Litfin, 1994). In its broadest sense, environmental discourses are often portrayed as a distinction between anthropocentrism and ecocentrism (Eckersley, 1992; MacKinnon, 2007), which has often been regarded as one of the common ecological moral dilemmas (Kortenkamp & Moore, 2001). Anthropocentrism provides a human-centric worldview of nature and explicitly states that humans are the sole bearers of intrinsic value and all other living things are there to sustain humanity’s existence (MacKinnon, 2007). The anthropocentric view regards humans as the most powerful entities in the universe while disregarding animals and plants unless they provide life necessities such as nutrition, clothing, shelter and medical benefits. On the contrary, ecocentrism, the term conceived by Aldo Leopold (1949), recognises that all species, including humans, are the product of a long evolutionary process and are interrelated in their life processes. Ecocentrism recognises intrinsic value in all living things on earth regardless of their usefulness to humans. It also encourages people to respect and care for animals and plants for their own sake. Discourses of Global Environmental Change and Governance The post-Stockholm era has witnessed an increasing international awareness of environmental problems as global problems unmindful of national territorial boundaries. The 1972 United Nations Conference on Human Environment (UNCHE), held in Stockholm, made it amply clear that the goal of reducing human impact on the environment would require extensive international cooperation, as many of the problems affecting the environment are global in nature. While one may judge most of the principles of the Stockholm declaration as rhetoric in environmental politics, its ultimate success was that environmental policy became a universal concern within international diplomacy, and the conference’s motto of ‘Only one Earth’ became iconic for the subsequent environmental discourse and actions (Grieger, 2012). Consequently, several discourses of the environment became popular, each attempting to underscore the global environmental change and indicating dominant debates about environmental governance. While attempting to underscore the bigger trajectory of global environmental discourse, Andrew Dobson (2000) distinguishes radical ecologism from managerial or reformist environmentalism. While environmentalism presents a managerial approach to environmental problems and believes that “they can be solved without fundamental changes in patterns of production and consumption; ecologism holds that a sustainable existence presupposes radical changes in our relationship with the non-human natural world, and in our mode of social and political life” (Dobson, 2000: 2). In a similar vein, Robyn Eckersley summarised the global environmental discourses that have emerged between the 1960s and 1980s. She mentions that while the global environmental discourse in the 1960s was understood in terms of ‘crisis of participation’, in the 1970s, eco-politics focused on ‘crisis of survival’, whereas, by the 1980s, environmental problems were seen to constitute a profound ‘crisis of culture and character’ and ‘an opportunity for emancipation’ (Eckersley, 1992: 8–17).

1.2 Discourses of Water

9

In his seminal work Politics of Earth: Environmental Discourses, John Dryzek (2013) adopts a more comprehensive approach to underscore the competing global environmental discourses. For Dryzek, “environmental discourse begins in industrial society and has to be positioned in the context of the long-dominant discourse of industrialism, which paradoxically featured many competing ideologies like liberalism, conservatism, socialism, Marxism and fascism” (Dryzek, 2013: 13). Albeit their fundamental differences, all these ideologies are committed to industrialism, and from an environmental perspective, seem like different variations of the theme. Dryzek does not consider industrialism as given to manifest one hegemonic environmental discourse and thus identifies four departures of industrialism. According to Dryzek, a departure from industrialism can be either reformist or radical and prosaic or imaginative. The prosaic departure considers environmental problems as troubles encountered by established industrial, political economy, which require action but do not point to a new kind of society. On the contrary, imaginative departures consider environmental problems as opportunities to dissolve old dilemmas in harmony with the industrial economic order. Combining the reformist or radical on the one hand and prosaic and imaginative on the other, Dryzek identifies four global environmental discourses of the contemporary periods: problem-solving, survivalism, sustainability and green radicalism (Dryzek, 2013). Environmental problem-solving is a prosaic-reformist discourse, which considers the political-economic status quo as given, but which needs adjustment by means of changes in the public policy and government reforms to cope with the environmental problems. Survivalism is a prosaic-radical discourse of the 1970s, which became popular with the publication of the Club of Rome’s Limits to Growth (Meadows & Meadows, 1972). This discourse highlights that unrelenting economic growth and everincreasing pressure on the environment due to rising population would eventually hit environmental limits, set by the availability of resources and the carrying capacity of the planet earth to sustain human intervention in the ecosystem. Dryzek considers the survival discourse radical as it demands to shift the focus away from incessant economic growth and a complete redistribution of power of the political economy of the industrial society. Sustainability discourse is an imaginative-reformist discourse of the 1980s, which emerged along with the publication of the Brundtland Report in 1987 (WCED, 1987), which attempted to blur the difference between economic growth and environmental protection. Unlike survivalism, this discourse redefined growth and development, making the ideas of limits less relevant. Green radicalism is an imaginative-radical discourse, which rejects the basic structure of industrial society and the anthropocentric conceptualisation of the environment. In the last three to four decades, environmental change has been manifested differently in different discourses, albeit the commonality of portraying environmental

10

1 Introduction

change as a global crisis. Based on the analysis of discursive narratives associated with deforestation, desertification, biodiversity use and climate change, Adgar et al. (2001) broadly distinguish between two discourses of global environmental change at the international level, i.e. Global Environmental Management GEM) discourse and populist discourse. The GEM discourse offers a technocratic worldview, requiring science-based solutions and external policy and managerial intervention to environmental problems. GEM discourse also is in synch with neoliberalism and thus offers a market-based solution to environmental problems. On the contrary, populist discourse tends to be more concerned with negative local impacts of interventions of external actors involved with conservation and use of natural resources. For populists discourse, global capitalism, with its interventionist approach, is the main perpetrator, and the local resource users are the major victims of global environmental change. Adopting an anti-globalisation stand, populist discourse “considers international economic relations, including international development assistance, as negative interventions and as neo-colonialism rather than as offering possibilities for trade, income and conservation” (Adger et al., 2001: 703). Having outlined the broad contours of environmental discourses, the following section attempts to examine the competing discourses that have emerged in the water sector, especially in the context of global water governance. The Discourses of Water The evolution of discourses on water may be traced back to the United Nations (UN) 1977 World Water Conference at Mar del Plata, Argentina, which launched the ‘International Drinking Water Supply and Sanitation Decade’ (1981–90) with the slogan ‘Water and Sanitation for All’. Following the Mar del Plata conference, the public policy in the water sector highlighted low-cost ‘hardware’ solutions to ensure wider accessibility of water installation of hand pumps and public wells. The message of the Mar del Plata conference, which resonated till the late 1980s, was to consider water as an issue of public health and ensure access to water to all through public expenditures. However, by the beginning of the 1990s, discourses on the water were to take a turn, when the major participating agencies—the World Bank, UNDP, UNICEF and WHO—convened Global Consultation on Safe Water and Sanitation for the 1990s at New Delhi to bring a consensus around key principles to be applied for the next generation. The consensus of the New Delhi Consultation effectively overturned the ‘old order’ in public health and engineering thinking and practice concerning water. Following the New Delhi declaration, water and sanitation services were ‘no longer regarded as unqualified social rights, to be met from public purse without thought given to economic and environmental constraints’. The effective spread of services, including to the poor, required an entirely different set of stakeholders and partnership relations, where government should do less to provide water services and instead enable other institutions—public and private—to deliver services and run them (Black, 1998: 46). From here on, water moved from being an issue of public health to that of an environmental good having economic implications. The changes that germinated in the New Delhi Consultation of 1990 further manifested in the Dublin conference of 1992 and went on to serve as a prelude to the dominant water discourse of the 1990s and beyond.

1.2 Discourses of Water

11

International discourses of water have sufficiently been influenced by standpoints of supra-national bodies such as the World Bank, UNDP, UNICEF, WWF, World Water Council and Global Water Partnership. A simplistic manner of underscoring international discourses of water may perhaps be to give a chronological account of the standpoints of these organisations on water. Approaching water discourses from a chronological perspective, Lyla Mehta (2004) distinguishes between three phases of organisational convergences. As Mehta (2004) mentions, the first phase (between Mar del Plata Conference in 1977 to Dublin Conference 1992) saw the consolidation of the water decade and declaration of water as an economic good at the International Conference on Water and the Environment, held at Dublin as a follow up the Rio Earth Summit of 1992. The second phase broadly covering the 1990s (from the Dublin conference in 1992 to The Hague conference in 2000) witnessed the spread of neo-liberal agenda in the water sector, which shifted the focus from viewing water as a common good and public service to that of a commodity that should be managed according to economic principles. The third phase corresponding to the discourses that emerged in the twenty-first century witnessed the emergence of supra-national bodies such as World Water Council (WWC) and Global Water Partnership (GWP), which are offering a new meaning to private sector involvement with a central focus on enhanced access for the poor (Mehta, 2004). A chronological reproduction of major initiatives of policy changes in the water sector certainly highlights the differential emphasis and the perspectives towards the water in different phases. However, it fails to demonstrate how certain relations of dominance are structured, produced and reproduced in the policymaking arena concerning water. While the language of different phases, as depicted by Mehta (2004), highlights the argumentative turns in the water sector, one needs to delve deep into the arguments to understand different positions from which these arguments come from, and different coalitions produce and hegemonise these arguments. As stated by Michael Billig, to understand the meaning of a sentence in an argumentative context, one should consider the positions which are being criticised or against which a justification is being mounted (Billig, 1987). Argumentative discourse analysis (ADA), therefore, requires to go beyond the examination of different interpretations of facts alone and to find “ways of combining analysis of discursive production of reality with analysis of socio-political practices from which social constructs emerge and in which actors are engaged” (Hajer, 2002: 62). In other words, ADA is not just about analysing arguments; it is much more about locating the sites of discursive production and examining the positions from which the actors argue a specific point. Hajer refers to these actors who share a common social construct in a discourse as ‘discourse coalition’(Hajer, 1993). The actors in a discourse coalition may belong to various backgrounds, but they all utter the languages and practices that conform to a particular discourse. Discourse Coalitions and Argumentative Turns in Discourses of Water Following Adger et al. (2001), we may identify two broad global discourses of water, i.e. Global Water Management (GWM) discourses of water and populists discourse of water. Albeit their relative dominance in the water sector in the 1990s and early

12

1 Introduction

2000s, respectively, traces of these two were visible in the international developments in the water sector following the Mar del Plata conference back in the late 1970s. While the GWM discourses emphasise on the economic and environmental value of water and urge to set the price right for the most efficient use of water with the active intervention of various non-state mechanisms, including the market, the populist discourses reiterate the notion of the (human) right to water, which the state should essentially ensure to its citizens especially the poor and the marginalised. The GWM discourses interpret the scarcity of water as a global crisis, which necessarily demands global solutions with the right kind of policy interventions concerning the management of water. These discourses call for the development of international frameworks on water, which can then be passed on to national and regional levels with top-down, techno-centric and interventionist approaches. GWM discourses on water augur well with neo-liberal values and principles, as they positively look forward to market-based solutions to the problems of water scarcity. While perceiving water scarcity as a global crisis is common to both GWM and populist discourses, the latter considers the poor and/or marginalised citizens as victims of the international capitalist order, which is being blamed for generating crisis in the sector. Adopting a political–ecological framework, populist discourses often take an anti-globalisation stand and reject international interventions in the water sector (Bryant, 1998; Peet & Watts, 1996). Therefore, the distinction between GWM and populist discourses constitutes one dimension for categorising discourses on the water in our framework. The second dimension of discourses of water would consider the nature of the GWM and populist discourses in terms of whether they are radical or reformist. Radical and reformists discourses of water may be considered as two polar opposites arguing for either a rigid or flexible approach to water, respectively. The radical discourses argue for a new kind of institutional arrangement, such as the commodification of water, development of water market or treatment of water as a human right. Radical discourses, thus, manifest themselves in both GWM and populist discourses. In contrast, reformist discourses aim to bring suitable modifications in public policy to meet the growing challenges for the water sector. Like the radical discourses, reformist discourses can manifest themselves either as GWM or populist discourses. Combining these two dimensions—GWM versus populist and reformist versus radical—provides four categories of discourses of water as depicted in Fig. 1.1., i.e. (a) water as an economic good, (b) water as a commodity, (c) water as basic need and (d) water as human rights.

Fig. 1.1 Discourses of water and discourse coalitions

1.2 Discourses of Water

13

The GWM Discourses of Water: (a)

Water as an economic good: Water as an economic good emerged as a dominant reformists paradigm within the GWM discourse on the water sector in the 1990s. This discourse of water that began to emerge in the New Delhi Consultation of 1990 got consolidated in the International Conference on Water and Environment, held in Dublin as a prelude to the Rio Earth Summit of 1992. The Dublin Statement of Water and Sustainable Development (Dublin Declaration) adopted the following four principles on the water on 31 January 1992 (ICWE, 1992). Principle No. 1:Freshwater is a finite and vulnerable resource, essential to sustain life, development and the environment. Principle No. 2:Water development and management should be based on a participatory approach, involving users, planners and policy-makers at all levels Principle No. 3:Women play a central part in the provision, management and safeguarding of water Principle No. 4:Water has an economic value in all its competing uses and should be recognised as an economic good

Despite considering water as an economic good, the Dublin Principles adopted a reformist view and recognised the basic rights of all human beings to have access to clean water and sanitation, albeit at an ‘affordable price’. It also highlighted that failure to recognise the economic value of water would result in wasteful and environmentally damaging use of water and considered managing water as an economic good as a rationale for achieving efficient, equitable and sustainable use of water. The Dublin Principles on the water contributed to the formulation of the Agenda 21 of the UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) held in June 1992 in Rio de Janeiro. Following Dublin Principles, the Rio declaration (Agenda 21, Chapter 18) reiterated the significance of protecting freshwater resources and called for delegating water management responsibilities to the lowest possible level with the active participation of people. Arguing in a reformist tone, Agenda 21 stated water as an ‘integral part of the ecosystem, a natural resource and a social and economic good’ (UNCED, 1992). Emphasising the economic value and scarce nature of water and bringing effective water governance into practice, the Global Water Partnership (GWP) advocated Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM), which the GWP defined as “a process that promotes the coordinated management and development of water, earth and related resources to maximise the social and economic benefits equitably, without compromising the sustainability of vital ecosystems” (GWP, 2000a). The IWRM perspective aimed at bringing reforms in the water sector by focusing both on supply and demand management, while emphasising the economic value of water resource. The paradigm shift from a supply-driven civil engineering approach to that of demand-driven water governance resulted in fixing the price and tariff of water supply, which was believed to affect water demand.

14

(b)

1 Introduction

Water as a commodity: Water as a commodity emerged as a radical GWM discourse following the Dublin Conference and with the active intervention of international donor organisations like the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, etc. in the drinking water sector. The fourth Dublin principle, which reiterated the economic value of water, subsequently became the foundation for the discourse of the commodification of water. Failure of the state in the efficient delivery of water services to its citizens coupled with corrupt bureaucracy and inefficient demand management, limited investment in building water infrastructure paved the way to justify the market as an alternative and efficient solution for the provisioning of water. Perhaps these justifications prompted Ismail Serageldin, the Chair of the World Commission on Water for the Twenty-first Century, to state that “handing over of water to private companies is one of the best ways to provide good services to the poor at a suitable price” (Petrella, 2001: 72). In its World Development Report 1994, the World Bank cited the public sector’s inability to finance the massive investments required to make water available to all as justifications for increasing privatisation of the water sector (Bank, 1994). The World Bank also argued for public–private partnerships in the water sector since these partnerships appropriately allocate and manage risks and responsibilities (Mehta, 2004).

‘Water as a commodity’ discourse resonates well with the neo-liberal framework of water, which dominated the discussions at the Second World Water Forum held at The Hague in March 2000. The globalisation of water that reiterated water policies of the developing world at the turn of the twentieth century reflected the influence of international agencies like the World Bank and the World Water Commission on drafting these policies. The neo-liberal initiatives in the water sector witnessed reduced public funding in water corroborated with enhancing donor agency financing of water. Reports suggest that during the period 1992–1997 World Bank spent nearly 900 million US$ on the water sector in India, and the public spending during the same period remained little over 1.2 billion US$ (cited in Mehta, 2000: 13). This report does not specify the nature of the investments or the cost–benefit analyses and does not provide an accurate comparator. However, the relevant point is that further to the discourse on the water as a commodity, investment in water has emerged as a lucrative affair and has often been termed as ‘blue gold’ or ‘liquid gold’ (Mehta, 2004). With their reformist and radical variants, the Global Water Management (GWM) discourses had several implications for the reforms introduced in the water sector. The GWM discourses resulted in a fundamental shift in orientation in the water sector from water development to water allocation and management. The conventional structural-engineering approach of developing water resource potentials gave way to the new paradigm of management of water demands and allocations following the GWM discourse. Further, citizen participation in water management emerged as another important feature of the water sector under GWM discourses. The uneasiness with the state-run bureaucratic systems of water service delivery and the neoliberal commitment of down-sizing the state’s role witnessed the emergence of

1.2 Discourses of Water

15

people’s participation as an essential parameter of GWM discourse. Consequently, programmes like Participatory Irrigation Management (PIM), Farmer Managed Irrigation Systems, Decentralised Drinking Water Supply emerged as new ways of supplying water to the citizens, who have now become ‘stakeholders in the water management process’ (Rout, 2008). The Populist Discourses of Water (c)

Water as a basic need: ‘Water as a basic need’ extends a reformist-populist discourse that is promoted mainly by the United Nations (UN) organisations such as UNDP, UNICEF and the Food and Agricultural Organisation’s (FAO) Joint Monitoring Programme (FAO-JMP). The rationale for the discourse on the water as a basic need stems from the fact that water is the most basic need to sustain life on earth, as one could sustain for some time without the three basic needs, i.e. food, clothing and shelter; however one cannot sustain without water. Thus, water as an absolute basic need supersedes the other three basic needs of human life. The basic need perspective to water echoed in the Mar del Plata conference of 1977, stated: ‘… all people, whatever their stage of development and their social and economic condition, have the right to have access to drinking water in quantities and of a quality equal to their basic needs’ (United Nations, 1977). The concept of the basic need of water was again reaffirmed during the Earth Summit of 1992 held at Rio de Janeiro, which stated, ‘… in developing and using water resources, priority has to be given to the satisfaction of basic needs and safeguarding of ecosystem’ (UN, 1992). Reaffirming its commitment to considering water as a basic need, the UN report prepared for the Commission on Sustainable Development titled ‘Comprehensive Assessment of the Freshwater Resources of the World’ stated: ‘all people require access to an adequate amount of clean water for such basic needs as drinking, sanitation and hygiene’ (United Nations, 1997). The report also stressed the development of sustainable water strategies that address basic human needs as well as the preservation of the ecosystem. The discourse of water as a basic need was also reflected in the international commitments to achieve stated development objectives through the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) and Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). The Goal 7 (c) of the MDG aimed to ‘halve, by 2015, the proportion of the population without access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation’ has been met, and 2.6 billion people gained access to improved drinking water sources between 1990 and 2015, and across the world.2.1 billion people have gained access to improved sanitation (UNO, 2000, https://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/environ.shtml). As water is a basic need, SDG goal 6 calls for ‘ensuring universal access to affordable drinking water and sanitation for all by 2030’ (WHO, 2017).

The basic needs discourses on water raise a pertinent question about what constitutes the basic need for water, which has been addressed differently by different international organisations. For instance, the US Agency for International Development

16

1 Introduction

(USAID), the World Bank and the World Health Organisation (WHO) has recommended between 20 and 40 L per capita per day (lpcd), excluding water required for cooking, bathing and basic cleaning. In a similar exercise, Peter H. Gleick recommended a minimum basic water requirement (BWR) of 50 lpcd, which included: 5 l of clean water per person per day for drinking, 20 lpcd to meet the most basic sanitation and hygiene, 15 lpcd for bathing and ten lpcd for cooking (Gleick, 1996, 1998). In the Indian context, the Accelerated Rural Water Supply Programme (ARWSS), which was introduced during 1972–73 by the government of India to assist states and Union Territories (UTs) in accelerating the pace of coverage of drinking water supply adopted the water supply norm of 40 lpcd, which was enhanced to 55 lpcd during the 12th Five Year Plan (FYP) (2012–17). With its emphasis on the pipe water supply to households in rural areas, the 12th FYP aims at enhancing the water supply norms to 70 lpcd in due course. (d)

Water as Human Right: The rights-based discourse on water argues that water, being the fundamental element of the life support system on earth, cannot be considered only as a basic need, but as a fundamental human right, under the broader rubric of the rights set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948. The reference here is made to several international conventions such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), International Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1976), Convention of Rights of Children (1986), Convention on Right to Development (1986), etc. which make right to water implicit in realising several other rights extended under these conventions. The rights-based discourse on water points towards Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), 1948, which states that “everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, and housing” (United Nations, 1948: 52). Though water is not explicitly mentioned in these conventions, yet right to life, health and well-being guaranteed in these internationally binding conventions implied fundamental conditions such as access to sufficient water at appropriate quality necessary to support life (Danieli et al., 1999; Gleick, 1998).

In 1986, the UN General Assembly adopted the Declaration on the Right to Development, which also implicitly recognised the importance of the right to water. Perhaps for the first time, explicit recognition of the right to water appeared in the 1989 Convention of Right of the Child (CRC), which in its Article 24, (2 C) directs national governments ‘to take appropriate measures to combat disease and malnutrition through the provision of adequate nutritious food and clean drinking water’ (United Nations, 1989). In November 2002, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights adopted General Comment No. 15 on the right to water, which stated in Article I.1 that the human right to water is indispensable for leading a life in human dignity. It defined the right to water as the right of everyone to sufficient, safe, acceptable and physically accessible and affordable water for personal and domestic uses. Finally, on 28 July 2010, the United Nation’s General Assembly

1.2 Discourses of Water

17

explicitly recognised the human right to water and sanitation through Resolution 64/292, and acknowledged that clean drinking water and sanitation are essential to the realisation of all human rights. The Resolution also called upon states and international organisations to provide financial resources and transfer technology to help countries, particularly developing countries, provide safe, clean, accessible, and affordable drinking water and sanitation for all (United Nations, 2010). The populist discourses of water, with its emphasis on basic need and human rights, have had several implications for the water sector and citizens in the developing societies who hitherto lacked access to it. First, the populists discourse extended a counter-strategy for the neo-liberal agenda of GWM discourse with its firm disapproval of the marketisation of water. The protests against the privatisation of water at the Second World Water Forum held at The Hague, Netherlands, resonates the spirit of the populist discourse and its opposition to globalisation in the water sector (see Bakker, 2010). Second, the rights-based approach encourages the international community and national governments to renew their efforts to meet the basic water needs of citizens. For the international organisations working in the water sector, extending increased international financial assistance to improve water and sanitation in the developing world, thereby, reducing the spread of diseases, improving health and well-being, enhancing the sense of dignity and decreasing drudgery of women. Acknowledgement of the ‘right’ to water also puts a moral pressure on national governments to translate the rights into obligations to ensure the water rights of citizens (Jolly, 1998, Cited in Gleick, 1998: 489). Third, considering water as a basic need, and more so as a human right, also helps set the priorities in water policy, where ‘basic (drinking) water requirements take precedence over other water use, management and investment decision’ (Gleick, 1998).

1.3 Mapping the Institutional Dimensions of Domestic Water Supply in India Having discussed the various perspectives of water discourses, in this section, we attempt to understand the broad array of institutional alternatives available in the domestic water supply in India. Broadly water withdrawals for different purposes are classified into irrigation, industry and domestic water usages. Water withdrawal for domestic purposes includes drinking water, municipal use or supply, and public services for commercial establishments and homes. Globally, around 70% of the total freshwater withdrawal is used for agriculture, while industry and domestic usages constitute 18 and 12%, respectively. However, this proportion varies across regions and countries. For instance, in Europe, 25% of freshwater withdrawal is used for agriculture and 54% for industrial usages; in Asia, water usages for agriculture, industry and domestic purposes remain at 81, 10 and 9%, respectively. In fact, in advanced industrial regions like western Europe, agricultural purposes consume only 26% of the freshwater withdrawal, whereas 74% of freshwater is used for agricultural

18

1 Introduction

Table 1.2 Water withdrawals by sector Continent/region

(All figure in percentages) Domestic/municipal

Industry

Agriculture

Africa

15

4

81

Northern Africa

13

3

84

Sub-Saharan Africa

16

5

79

Americas

14

37

48

Northern America

13

47

40

Central America and Caribbean

23

18

59

Southern America

71

17

12

Asia

9

10

81

Middle East

9

7

84

Central Asia

5

7

89

South and South-Eeastern Asia

9

10

80

Europe

21

54

25

Western & Central Europe

21

53

26

Eastern Europe

21

58

21

Australia and New Zealand

20

15

65

World

12

19

69

Source FAO. 2016. AQUASTAT database. http://www.fao.org/nr/water/aquastat/data/query/index. html?lang=en

and industrial purposes combined together. The following table depicts the relative proportion of freshwater withdrawals for agriculture, industry and domestic purposes in different regions of the world (Table 1.2). The use of freshwater for domestic usage worldwide at 12% overall is the lowest in proportion to industrial and agricultural purposes. Therefore, it is essential to provide clean water for drinking and sanitation toward achieving SDG 6 as well as others such as SDGs 3 (good health and well-being) and 4 (quality education). The institutional water governance for access to life-supporting drinking water is crucial, including managing related aspects such as disease control and overall well-being. Domestic water consumption may be regarded as an issue of private good from a narrow perspective, like other commodities consumed by individuals. But from a larger perspective, there are many public and collective goods characteristics of drinking water, such as developing water infrastructure, public supply and ensuring equity in the water supply. Further, there is no shortage of instances of common pool characteristics of drinking water provisioning, where the communities govern their drinking water needs collectively (see Rout, 2014). It is, therefore, unambiguous that a range of institutional alternatives plays crucial roles in ensuring and improving access to basic water requirements. Drinking water supply in rural areas in India has mostly been dominated by public sector provisioning, with the state playing an active role in building water

1.3 Mapping the Institutional Dimensions of Domestic Water …

19

infrastructure and delivering water services in rural areas. However, with reference to urban drinking water supply, especially in the context of recent reforms, there has been a wide range of institutional arrangements, ranging from supply of water services solely by the public sector and in some cases solely by the private sector, with some degree of autonomy in between (Anand, 2001, 2007). Following Anand (2007), we may delineate these three institutional ranges of drinking water supply in the urban context in India: • Public Sector provisioning of Water: This has been the conventional institutional arrangement of supply of water and continues to be such in many states. Public sector provision may include several arrangements such as – A government department providing water – A government subsidiary, such as a water board providing water – Transfer of water supply systems to urban or rural local bodies, which are built by the government – Arrangements where Local Government Bodies build, operate and maintain water supply. • Autonomous/Regulatory bodies for Supply of Water: Since the mid-1990s, there has been a move toward increasing the autonomy of water utilities. With the advent of the New Public Management Approach, several state governments in India have created mechanism to promote accountability of the water service delivery bodies. Consequently, relatively autonomous water boards have been established in cities such as Hyderabad and Bengaluru. • Private Sector Provisioning of Water: There has not been complete privatisation of water utilities in India, such as in countries like the United Kingdom or France. The attempts towards the introduction of the private sector in water service delivery have involved public–private partnership, where some degree of involvement of the private sector has taken place in the following manner: – Service contract, where ownership and operation and maintenance responsibilities remain with the public sector, but specific actions are handed over to the private sector. – The management contract, which tends to be fewer than five years, where ownership remains with the public sector, but operation and maintenance responsibilities are contracted to the private sector. – Lease, Concessions, involving longer-term contracts where some of the risks are transferred to the private sector along with financial responsibilities. The above institutional mapping of the domestic water sector in India, more so in the urban context, reaffirms the responsibility involving public sector provisioning of water. Hence, the role of the government is crucial. The private sector plays a small role in the domestic water supply in India, which is now being perceived as increasingly important. The three institutional structures specified above comprise different implications for people, who are the end-users of the service provided by the water utilities/institutions. First, in the case of public sector provisioning, the end (water)-users

20

1 Introduction

Fig. 1.2 Institutional mapping of domestic water supply and possible implications

remain as citizen-recipients have a lesser role about the information and control over the services being provided to them. These citizen-recipients exercise limited or no authority over water service provisioning, with none or minimal scope for participation in water service delivery. Second, in water service provisioning by autonomous water utilities (e.g. water boards), end-water-users exercise some degree of control over water utilities through citizen participation in service delivery. In this case, water users are not just recipient-beneficiaries of government water supply schemes but emerge as participants with a certain degree to express their opinions, access to information, transparency and accountability. Third, in the case of the third institutional alternative (privatisation), water users become consumers or customers with enhanced access to information, transparency and the possibility for decision-making about the supplier. The institutional mapping of drinking water provisioning, with its possible implications for water service delivery and end-water users, is depicted as per the following diagram (Fig. 1.2).

1.4 Urban Water Supply and Images of Water Scarcity In an attempt to find an efficient solution to problems in the water sector, the traditional civil engineering approach to manage water supplies, which has dominated development planning of most developing countries, including India, relied upon increasing the availability of water by exploring new sources of water and looking beyond the city boundaries to meet the rising demand. Augmentation of the supply of water through a long-distance transfer of water to growing urban systems has

1.4 Urban Water Supply and Images of Water Scarcity

21

been perceived as a necessity in many Indian cities. Therefore, augmentation of the water supply has always got priority in policy framework rather than managing the growing demand. Growing emphasis on the supply side of urban water has undermined the demand side aspect of water governance, a fact which has been often referred to as ‘system-collapse’ or ‘institutional failure’ of urban water governance (Raj, 2013). Such reliance on augmenting water supply systems potentially owes itself to the project of modernity, which has held a more profound conviction on the ability of technology (and, therefore, civil engineering) in solving modern-day problems, including problems of environment, and more specifically, the problem of water scarcity. The growing commitment to the ‘makeability’ of society and the corresponding policy framework to solve the problem of water supply with coordinated government intervention and use of technology to extract water have shifted the focus away solely from building sustainable institutional capabilities to govern demand and supply of water. It is, however, essential to understand that supply-side emphasis in policy framework, which relied on civil engineering approach to augment supply rather than building sustainable institutions to govern demand, is very much related to the manner in which water scarcity was conceptualised in most developing countries. The planned economic development model, with its firm reliance on science, technology and industry as makers of progress and development, conceptualised water scarcity as a situation of lack of technological and financial investment in bringing water to the people (from where it is available), rather than perceiving the problem solely as an environmental or physical one. Consequently, scarcity was interpreted as a problem of there being enough water but not enough money or technology or human resources to bring that water to the people (Anand, 2001). This understanding of water scarcity as ‘technological-fix’ (Lopez-Gunn & Llamas, 2008) enabled financial investment, often with assistance from international donor-agencies, and involving technological innovations for augmenting water resources and infrastructure development toward ensuring adequate access to water. Water scarcity, however, may be conceptualised in alternative manners. Water scarcity is often interpreted as a shortage of water in absolute terms or in per capita terms, which is the outcome of the physical availability of water and population volume. Based on the per capita availability of freshwater, Malin Falkenmark distinguishes between water-scarce, on the threshold of water stressed, and no waterstressed regions. According to Falkenmark, regions can be identified as ‘water scarce’ if they have less than 1000 cubic metres of per capita availability of freshwater, ‘on the thresholds of water stressed’ if they have between 1000 and 1700 cubic metres of per capita availability, and ‘no water stressed’ if they have more than 1700 cubic metres per capita availability of water (Falkenmark, 1989, 1990). This argument presents a neo-Malthusian approach as it indicates that the population continues to grow while the physical availability of water is fixed by natural factors. Further, some other scholars also conceptualise water scarcity as capability deprivation (Anand, 2004). This approach understands water scarcity as some people not having enough water rather than there not being enough water. Water scarcity, therefore, can be interpreted as problems of accessibility affecting the poor due to their disadvantageous positions with regard to capabilities.

22

1 Introduction

In contrast to the above conceptualisation of water scarcity, the Human Development Report (HDR) 2006, published by UNDP, argues that water scarcity is mainly a problem of institutional failure. Similar views are also echoed in Rogers, De Silva and Bhatia, who regard the root cause of the water crisis as mainly a crisis of water governance (Rogers et al., 2002). The governance failure argument points towards ineffective, inefficient and unsustainable practices of water service delivery to meet the growing water demands, rather than frequent augmentation of water source and supply. It is often reiterated that ‘governance failure occurs when institutional dimensions of water management and decision-making do not consider the needs/demands of the households, creating disincentives for both water service provider and urban households’ (Bakker et al., 2008). An analysis of the governance of water and the relative success or failure of it, therefore, needs exploring different aspects of water institutions or decision-making arrangements, such as administration, delivery of service, financial and economic management and political oversight (UNHSP, 2003). Since the beginning of the millennium, several efforts have been made to enhance access to safe drinking water and ensure water security with effective governance reforms in the water sector. The Global Water Partnership’s (GWP) Framework for Action declared at the World Water Forum in 2000 at Hague that ‘the water crisis is mainly a crisis of governance’ (GWP, 2000b). In the same year, the United Nations (UN) 2000 Millennium Assembly emphasised conservation and stewardship in protecting our common environment and especially to stop the unsustainable exploitation of water resources by developing water management strategies at the regional, national and local levels. This was further endorsed at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002 in Johannesburg, South Africa. At the implementation level, target 3 of Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 7 aimed at halving the proportion of the population without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation by the year 2015. The achievements of MDG indicate that between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of the global population using an improved drinking water source has increased from 76 to 91%, surpassing the MDG target. Nearly 2.6 billion people gained access to improved drinking water sources since 1990, out of which over 1.9 billion people gained access to piped water supply between 2000 and 2015 (UNO, 2015: 58). It was estimated that 844 million people globally lacked access to basic drinking water services in 2015, who either used improved sources with water collection times exceeding 30 min (termed as limited services), used unprotected wells and springs (unimproved sources), or took water directly from surface water sources (WHO-JMP, 2017: 11). While half of all people using unimproved sources live in sub-Saharan Africa, nearly one-fifth live in South Asia. Besides, the rural–urban disparity continues to exist in access to the improved water supply globally, and more so in developing countries. As of 2015, 96% of the urban population worldwide use improved sources of drinking water compared to 84% in rural areas. Hence while there has been progress, there is some more work to be done to ensure SDG six aimed at achieving universal and equitable access to safe and affordable water can be met by 2030 if not before.

1.5 Aims and Subject Matter of the Book

23

1.5 Aims and Subject Matter of the Book Against this backdrop, this book investigates the institutional dimensions of urban water supply in India, focusing on institutional capabilities to provide drinking water to urban households in an efficient, equitable and sustainable manner. The book revolves around three important aspects of urban water supply and governance. First, the book makes an effort to understand household water service delivery scenario in urban India in general, and expanding from case studies based on our survey of the four cities namely Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Kochi. Since urban water use pattern is dependent upon urban land use pattern to accommodate the burgeoning population, this theme begins by investigating the changes in the urbanisation pattern of the cities identified for empirical research. It attempts to answer important research questions like what are the trends in urbanisation and urban water demand in the selected cities, how has the supply scenario changed to meet the growing demand, and what are the patterns of water use in these identified cities. With regard to access and use of water in the urban context, the book investigates various sources of household water use in urban India among our four selected cities. The book’s second theme pertains to social inequality and access to water in the urban context in India. This theme dissects the concept of water scarcity and explores whether water scarcity is a by-product of class-based inequality. In other words, it explores the variability in access and use of water-based upon social and economic inequality. While on the one hand, this theme answers the question as to whether access to water and water scarcity is socially neutral, on the other hand, it explores the resourceful ways through which the poor manage their daily water needs. The book also examines differential access to water of households belonging to different classes ranging from lower class to upper-class households. Further, it analyses the differential access based upon spatial (geographical) inequality based on households residing in slum localities, unplanned, mixed and planned layouts. The book also attempts to understand differential perceptions of water scarcity of households belonging to different classes and spatial locations. Finally, this theme examines the questions as to why poor households have less access to water and how they cope with situations of water scarcity. The book’s third theme considers the role of institutions in the efficient and effective delivery of water in urban India. It tries to answer two crucial questions: (i) how different institutional arrangements perform concerning the provisioning of water and meeting the water demands, and (ii) how the institutions vary with regard to efficiency, transparency and accountability, safety and quality and citizens’ satisfaction for the supply of water. This theme maps out the institutional response to meet water demands and provide efficient water service delivery in urban India. It highlights the issues of efficiency, transparency and accountability in water service delivery in urban India through a primary survey conducted in the four selected cities. In other words, this section examines evidence of water governance in urban India. It explores how the response of urban water governance to growing water demands depends upon establishing effective institutional arrangement.

24

1 Introduction

1.6 A Note on Methodology The book fundamentally relies upon empirical work conducted at the household level on water access and use in four urban locations in India. Besides the empirical data from identified cities, it uses available relevant secondary data to understand the status of water demand and supply scenario in urban India. The empirical research has been carried out in four cities of India, namely, Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and Kochi. These cities were selected on the basis of per capita availability of water in the river basins where they are situated. Based on the Falkenmark index (Falkenmark, 1990), the Indian cities were divided into water scare, on the verge of water scarcity and no water scarcity based on per capita availability of water in the corresponding river basins. Accordingly, the four cities that we selected were situated in four states in India: • Ahmedabad in Gujarat—Water Scarce cities (with 631 cubic metres of per capita water availability) • Bengaluru in Karnataka—Water Scarce cities (with 423 cubic metres of per capita water availability) • Hyderabad in Telangana—On the verge of water scarcity • Kochi in Kerala—No-Water scare city. Data for the research was collected from households belonging to various socioeconomic categories and residing in various spatial locations. The study covered 714 households in Kochi and 1000 households each in the other three cities. Thus, 3714 households were interviewed to gain a deeper perspective on water service delivery in urban India. Further details of the methodology are described in chapter four of this book.

1.7 Book Chapters The book contains nine chapters, including an introduction and conclusion. The initial three chapters set the scene for the discussion on governance issues in the urban water sector. Following this introduction, the second chapter discusses three perspectives of water in India, i.e. resource perspective, politico-legal perspective and policy perspective. Based on secondary sources of published material and other reports gathered through discussions and interviews with officials and our networks, the chapter attempts to delineate the law and policy reforms within the sector. It highlights the significant arguments of water institutional reforms and brings out the significant features and trends of such reforms. Chapter three engages with a conceptual understanding of water governance and institutional reforms in water governance. Adopting an institutional decomposition and analysis framework, the chapter identifies water organisation, water law and water policy as crucial elements of water institutions. The chapter also indicates that institutional reforms in water sector governance pertain to corresponding changes in these three crucial elements

1.7 Book Chapters

25

of water institutions. Expanding further the methodological strategies adopted for the study, Chap. 4 provides a profile of the study region, cities, and the respondents. It compares the four cities identified based on selected indicators of demographic, ecological and economic aspects. Chapter 5 maps out the status of Urban Water Supply (UWS) in India and examines the water demand and supply scenario for Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Kochi. The chapter begins with a larger understanding of the drinking water situation in rural and urban areas of India and proceeds further to present a status report of the urban water supply system by using secondary sources of data from various census reports and data from respective water utilities. Chapter 6 discusses the availability, access and use of water in the four identified cities, i.e. Ahmadabad, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Kochi, based on primary data from the field. Using field-level empirical data, the chapter attempts to map out water availability, access and usages in urban spaces of four studied cities. The chapter begins with a brief socio-economic profile of the respondents chosen for the study; and then proceeds further in engaging with the observed reality of water, as evidenced empirically. Chapter 7 deals with water scarcity and unequal access to water based upon the household’s differential socio-economic status and geographical (spatial) location. It begins with a conceptual discussion of water scarcity and discusses various dimensions of debate on water scarcity. The chapter approaches inequality based on the households’ economic conditions and geographical location and then depicts how different households have differential access to water. Similarly, it also looks at differential access of households residing in planned, non-planned and mixed localities and slum areas. It describes access to water as a reflection of larger political-economic forces and discusses how the policy often fails to incorporate the water demands of poorer sections of urban India—a factor described as institutional and governance failure in literature. The chapter also delineates the coping strategies and discusses the resourcefulness that poorer households in urban India adopt to deal with the situations of water scarcity and meet their everyday water needs because of their limited access from public provisioning. Chapter 8 explores further to highlight the institutional dimensions of drinking water governance in urban India. It specifically investigates the role of institutions in equitable, efficient and sustainable water service delivery in urban India. It compares the four cities in terms of their institutional arrangements to provide water to urban households and depicts how these institutions function in terms of specific identified criteria. It also highlights how different water supply institutions respond towards the everyday needs of water of poorer households, which has a bearing on their access to water. To analyse institutional performance, the focus has been on essential indicators including the timing of water supply, reliability, time taken to get a new connection, metering and monitoring of water use by households, regularity in billing, time taken to repair, access to information, and complaint redressal. Finally, the chapter reiterates the linkages between institutional arrangements and the demand side of drinking water in urban areas. Chapter 9 summarises the book’s main findings and concludes by highlighting the urgent need for adapting to urban water demand management.

26

1 Introduction

References Adger, W. N., et al. (2001). Advancing a political ecology of global environmental discourses. Development and Change, 32(4), 681–715. Aggarwal, V., Maurya, N., & Jain, G. (2013). Pricing urban water supply. Environment and Urbanization ASIA, 4(1), 221–241. https://doi.org/10.1177/0975425313477768 Anand, P. B. (2004). The political economy of water scarcity and issues of inequality, entitlements and identities: A tale of two cases from southern India. International Journal of Technology Management and Sustainable Development, 3(2), 115–131. Anand, P. B. (2007). Semantics of success or pragmatics of progress?: An assessment of India’s progress with drinking water supply. The Journal of Environment and Development, 16(1), 32–57. https://doi.org/10.1177/1070496506297005. Anand, P. B. (2001). Water Scarcity in Chennai, India: Institutions, Entitlements and Aspects of Inequality in Access. WIDER Discussion Paper No. 2001/140. Helsinku, Finland. Bakker, K., et al. (2008). Governance failure: rethinking the institutional dimensions of urban water supply to poor households. World Development, 36(10), 1891–1915. https://doi.org/10.1016/j. worlddev.2007.09.015. Bakker, K. (2010). Privatizing water: Governance failure and the World’s urban water crisis. Hyderabad: Orient BlackSwan. Bank, W. (1994). World development report 1994: Infrastructure for development. Oxford University Press. Berger, P. L., & Luckmann, T. (1966). Social construction of reality: A treatise in the sociology of knowledge. Penguin Books. Billig, M. (1987). Arguing and thinking: A rhetorical approach to social psychology. Cambridge University Press. Black, M. (1998). Learning What Works A 20 Year Retrospective View on International Water and Sanitation Cooperation. Washington, D.C. http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/703661 468326369198/pdf/multi-page.pdf. Retrieved: October 29 2018. Bryant, R. L. (1998). Power, knowledge and political ecology in the third world: A review. Progress in Physical Geography, 22(1), 79–94. Catley-Carlson, M. (2000) Why we must invest in urban water and sanitation. In Habitat debate (p. 14). Danieli, Y., Stamatopoulou, E., & Diaz, C. J. (1999). The universal declaration of human rights: Fifty years and beyond. Baywood Publishing Company. Das, D. K. (2013). 22 of India’s 32 big cities face water crisis, Times of India, 9 September. Dobson, A. (2000). Green political through. Routledge. Dryzek, J. S. (2013). The politics of earth: Environmental discourses. Oxford University Press. Eckersley, R. (1992). Environmentalism and political theory: Towards an ecocentric approach. State University of New York Press. Falkenmark, M. (1990). Rapid population growth and water scarcity: The predicament of tomorrow’s Africa. Population and Development Review, 16, 81–94. Falkenmark, M. (1989). Scarcity now massive water the isn ’ t it threatening add ressed bein. Ambio, 18(2), 112–118. www.jstor.org/stable/4313541. Gleick, P. H. (1996). Basic water requirements for human activities: Meeting basic needs. Water International, 21(May), 83–92. https://doi.org/10.1080/02508069608686494 Gleick, P. H. (1998). The human right to water. Water Policy, 1, 487–503. Grieger, A. (2012). Only one earth: Stockholm and the beginning of modern environmental diplomacy. Environment and Society Portal, Arcadia, (10). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10909-0120458-1. GWP. (2000a). Integrated water resources management. TEC Background Paper 4. Stockholm. www.gwpforum.org. Retrieved: November 3 2017.

References

27

GWP. (2000b). Towards water security: A framework for action. Stockholm. http://www.gwp.org/ globalassets/global/toolbox/references/towards-water-security.-a-framework-for-action.-execut ive-summary-gwp-2000.pdfRetrieved: November 3 2017. Hajer, M. (1993). Discourse coalitions and the institutionalization of practice: The case of acid rain in Britain. In N. C. Durham (Ed.), The argumentative turn in policy analysis and planning (pp. 43–76). Duke University Press. Hajer, M. (1995). The politics of environmental discourse: Ecological modernization and the policy process. Clarendon Press. Hajer, M. (2002). Discourse analysis and the study of policy making. European Political Science, 2(1), 61–65. https://doi.org/10.1057/eps.2002.49. Hajer, M., & Versteeg, W. (2005). A decade of discourse analysis of environmental politics: Achievements, challenges, perspectives. Journal of Environmental Policy and Planning, 7(3), 175–184. https://doi.org/10.1080/15239080500339646. Hall, S., et al. (2001). Foucault: Power, Knowledge and Discourse. In M. Wetherell (Ed.), Discourse theory and practice: A reader (pp. 71–81). Sage in association with The Open University. Hannigan, J. A. (1995). Environmental sociology: A social constructionist perspective. Routledge. ICWE. (1992). The Dublin statement on water and sustainable development. Dublin. Jolly, R. (1998). Water and human rights: Challanges for the twenty-first century. In Conference of the Belgian royal academy of oversease sciences, March 23, 1998. Brussels. Kortenkamp, K. V., & Moore, C. F. (2001). Ecocentrism and anthropocentrism: Moral reasoning about ecological commons dilemmas. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 21(3), 261–272. https://doi.org/10.1006/jevp.2001.0205. Kumar, M. D. (2014). Thirsty cities: How Indian cities can meet their water needs. Oxford University Press. Leopold, A. (1949). A sand county Almanac. Oxford University Press. Litfin, K. (1994). Ozone discourses: Science and Politics in Global Environmental Cooperation. Columbia University Press. Lopez-Gunn, E., & Llamas, M. R. (2008). Re-thinking water scarcity: Can science and technology solve the global water crisis? Natural Resources Forum, 32, 228–238. MacKinnon, B. (2007). Ethics: Theory and contemporary issues (5th edn.) Belmont: Thomson/Wadsworth. Mcdonald, R. I., et al. (2014). Water on an urban planet: Urbanization and the reach of urban water infrastructure. Global Environmental Change, 27, 96–105. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha. 2014.04.022. Meadows, D. H., & Meadows, D. L. (1972). Limits to growth. Pan Books. Mehta, L. (2000). Water for the twenty-first century: Challenges and Mosconceptions. IDS Working Paper 111. Sussex. Mehta, L. (2004). Financing water for all: behind the border policy convergence in water management. IDS Working Paper 233. Sussex. Meinhof, U., & Richardson, K. (Eds.). (1994). Text, discourse and context: Representations of poverty in Britain. Longman. Mühlhäusler, P., & Peace, A. (2006). Environmental discourses. Source: Annual Review of Anthropology, 35, 457–479. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.anthro.35.081705.123203. Mukherjee, S., Shah, Z., & Kumar, M. D. (2010). Sustaining urban water supplies in India: Increasing role of large reservoirs. Water Resources Management, 24(10), 2035–2055. NITI Ayog. (2018). Composite Water Management Index. Delhi. Peet, R., & Watts, M. (1996). Liberation ecologies: Environment, development, social movements. Routledge. Petrella, R. (2001). The water manifesto: Arguments for a world water contract. Books for Change. Raj, K. (2013). Sustainable urban habitats and urban water supply: Accounting for unaccounted for water in Bangalore City, India. Current Urban Studies, 01(4), 156–165. https://doi.org/10.4236/ cus.2013.14017. Rees, J. A. (2006). Urban water and sanitation services; An IWRM approach. 11.

28

1 Introduction

Rogers, P., De Silva, R., & Bhatia, R. (2002). Water is an economic good: How to use prices to promote equity, efficiency, and sustainability. Water Policy, 4(1), 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1016/ S1366-7017(02)00004-1. Rout, S. (2008). Institutional reforms in water sector: A cross country perspective from South Asia. International Journal of South Asian Studies, 1, 236–255. Rout, S. (2014). Institutional variations in practice of demand responsive approach: Evidence from rural water supply in India. Water Policy, 16(4). http://wp.iwaponline.com/content/16/4/650. Retrieved: March 30 2017. Shaban, A. (2008). Water poverty in Urban India: A study of major cities. In Seminar paper submitted for the UGC Summer Programme (pp. 1–21). http://jmi.ac.in/upload/publication/Water_Pov erty_in_urban_India.pdf. Sharp, L., & Richardson, T. (2001). Reflections on foucauldian discource analysis in planning and environmental research. Journal of Environmental Policy and Planning, 3, 193–209. https://doi. org/10.1002/jepp.88 UN. (1992). The rio declaration on environment and development. New York. http://www.unesco. org/education/pdf/RIO_E.PDFRetrieved: February 9 2018. UN. (2016). The Worlds cities in 2016. New York. UN. (2019). World urbanization prospects: The 2018 revision. New York. UNCED. (1992). A guide to Agena 21: Global partnership. Geneva. UNHSP. (2003). Local action for global goals: Water and sanitation in the world’s cities. Earthscan. United Nations. (1977). Report of the United Nations water conference: Mar del Plata, 14–25 March 1977. United Nations. (1997). Comprehensive assessment of the freshwater resources of the world. United Nations. (1948). Universal Declaration of Human Rights. United Nations. (1989). Convention on the rights of child. General Assembly resolution 44/25 of 20 November 1989 entry into force 2 September 1990. United Nations (2010). The human right to water and sanitation: Resolution adopted by United Nations General Assembly on 28 July, 2010. UNO. (2000). United Nations millennium declaration. New York. UNO. (2015). The millennium development goals report 2015. New York. Van Dijk, T. A. (2001). h. In R. Wodak & M. Meyer (Eds.), Methods of critical discourse analysis (pp. 95–120). Sage Van Leeuwen, T. (2006). Critical discourse analysis. In K. Brown (Ed.), Encyclopedia of language and linguistics (2nd ed., Vol. 3, pp. 290–294). Elsevier Ltd. WCED. (1987). Our common future. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1161/circulati onaha.106.653980 Wetherell, M., Taylor, S., & Yates, S. J. (2001). Discourse as data: A guide for analysis. Sage. WHO. (2017). World Health Statistics 2017: Monitoring Health for the SDGs. Geneva. WHO-JMP. (2017). Progress on drinking water, sanitation and hygiene. http://www.wipo.int/amc/ en/mediation/rules. Retrieved: October 31 2017. Wodak, R., & Meyer, M. (2001). Methods of critical discourse analysis. Sage Publications.

Chapter 2

Water: Perspectives, Prospects and Reforms in India

2.1 Introduction Human being’s constant search for water even beyond the blue planet and the NASA’s findings about possibility of water availability in planet Mars,1 perhaps best demonstrates the centrality of water to human existence. Thales (c.624–c. 546 BC), the founding father of Greek philosophical tradition, stated, “the principle of all things is water, that all comes from water, and to water all returns” (Stace, 1920: 21). As the elixir of life, source of livelihood, input in the production process, element of religious practices and discourse from ancient philosophies to modern economics, and an essential cause of political contestation, water constantly generates debate and discussion among academic, policy and praxis processes. It is seemingly paradoxical that both water scarcity and plenty coexist on our blue planet. Nearly three-fourth of our planet, which accounts to 361 million sq. kms out of the total geographical area of 510 million sq. kms of the planet earth, are covered by water (Anand, 2007: 2). Albeit a total stock of 1.4 billion cubic kilometres of water in planet earth (UNESCO, 2003: 68), water available for human consumption is very scant as almost 97% of the total available water is saline, and hence, unsuitable for consumption. This leaves a meagre 3% of total available water as ‘freshwater’, suitable for human consumption. Not all the water that exists as ‘freshwater’ is accessible by human beings, since more than two-third of it exists in the form of ice in glaciers, permanents snow and polar ice caps. So, the water that is actually available for human use—the ‘blue water’—constitutes only 1% of the total stock of water. Ultimately about one-tenth of the 1% of all water exists in lakes and rivers, which is directly available for human consumption and therefore comprises a major challenge for water sharing among over 7.5 billion world population.

1

https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-confirms-evidence-that-liquid-water-flows-on-today-smars. © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022 S. Rout and R. Kattumuri, Urban Water Supply and Governance in India, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-3819-0_2

29

30

2 Water: Perspectives, Prospects and Reforms in India

Table 2.1 Water reserves of the earth

Source of reserve

Nature of water

Volume (km3 )

Percentage of global reserve

Oceans

Saline

135,00,00,000

97.37

Snow and ice

Freshwater

2,75,00,000

1.98

Groundwater

82,00,000

0.59

Atmospheric

4,60,000

0.033

Lakes and rivers

2,07,000

0.015

Soil moisture

70,000

0.005

Source Agnew and Woodhouse (2011)

Nearly six-tenths of freshwater exists as underground water beneath the surface of the earth. The distribution of water reserves of the earth as it exists in different sources is depicted in Table 2.1: From the perspective of aggregate water use, the existing less than 1% of available freshwater may appear as abundant if one looks at the average global water withdrawal for human needs. It has been estimated that the global water withdrawal for various human activities has remained less than 10% (see Table 2.2). Across the world, the total precipitation is more than 25 times the amount withdrawn for human activities annually. Thus, freshwater availability could be perceived as being abundant based on average global water withdrawal for human needs. However, water Table 2.2 Availability and withdrawal of freshwater Region

% of the world population

Precipitation Internal renewable per year (km3 ) freshwater resources

World

100

Africa Northern America

Total freshwater withdrawal

Volume (km3 /y)

% of world freshwater

Volume (km3 /y)

% of world freshwater

108,963

42,810

100

3853

9

17

20,371

3931

9.2

220

6

4.77

13,881

6077

14.2

605

10

Central America and Caribbean

2.35

1515

735

1.7

33

5

Southern America

5.61

29,012

12,724

29.7

216

2

Asia

59.66

26,855

11,865

27.7

2421

20

Europe

11

12,564

6576

15.4

332

5

Oceania

0.54

4765

902

2.1

25

3

Source FAO-AQUASTAT, 2016 database. http://www.fao.org/nr/water/aquastat/tables/WorldDataIRWR_eng.pdf

2.1 Introduction

31

scarcity has emerged as a significant concern in recent decades. There is almost an unambiguous agreement of existing water crises globally, partly due to distributional imbalances and governance challenges. Albeit seemingly abundant, planet earth’s freshwater resources are unevenly distributed within and between countries. Historically, human settlements have evolved around water bodies. Yet, the intensity of water withdrawal for human requirements and settlements does not commensurate with water availability. For instance, the continent of Asia has around 60% of the world population, but only 27.2% of the world’s freshwater. Consequently, its water demand is much higher than the regionally available supply. By comparison, South America has almost 30% of the world’s freshwater resources while containing only 5.61% of the world’s population. Reportedly, water withdrawal in Asia is around 20% compared to water withdrawal of 2% in South America. A rapidly growing global population and the ever-increasing urbanisation accompanied by corresponding changes in lifestyles have significantly impacted water availability in the last century. The per capita usage of water increased from less than 600 km3 [Cubic Kilo Metre (CKM)] per year during 1900 to almost 4000 km3 per year by 2010. The World Commission on Water has estimated that water use will further increase by about 50% in the next 30 years (World Bank, 2004). At the same time, per capita water availability has decreased by a third during the last three decades of the twentieth century, i.e. between 1970 and 1990 (UNESCO, 2003: 12). Although there is a growing trend of world population stabilisation in recent years, yet, it is projected that by 2050, around seven billion people will have to face water scarcity in sixty countries of the world (Gardner-Outlaw and Engelman, 1997). This chapter attempts to understand water scenarios in India from three perspectives: resource (physical), politico-legal and policymaking. This chapter begins with a resource perspective and highlights the availability and future requirements of water for the country; this is followed by a discussion of the legal and constitutional dimensions. Finally, the chapter delves into policy perspectives and critically examines current policies concerning water governance in India.

2.2 Water in India: A Resource Perspective This book focuses mainly on the issue of domestic water, more specifically in an urban context. However, it is crucial to examine the water resource perspective, highlighting water resource availability, development and management in India. An understanding of the resource perspective also becomes crucial to inform the formulation of efficient water governance policies. India’s Water Balance: Rainfall is the primary source of freshwater. India receives its rainfall from two main monsoons, i.e. south-west monsoon, which brings rain to significant parts of India from June to September, and the north-east monsoon (or return south-west monsoon),

32

2 Water: Perspectives, Prospects and Reforms in India

which brings rain to southern parts of India during October to December every year. It is estimated that out of the 110 million hectare metres (m ha m) of moisture that exists in atmospheric currents that passes through the Indian sub-continent, only 25–30% or approximately 400 m ha m precipitates in about 113 days in the form of rain and snow in India (Verghese, 2007: 71). Taking the total precipitation into account, several attempts have been made to develop a ‘water budget’ for India, which estimates utilisable surface water resources of India by subtracting the replenishable groundwater water and water used for evapotranspiration from the total available rainwater (Gupta & Deshpande, 2004; Kumar, Singh & Sharma, 2005; Narasimhan, 2008). The erstwhile Planning Commissions had estimated the average rainfall of the country to be 1170 mm. With a total landmass of 3.28 million sq. km., India’s total rainfall input has been calculated (by multiplying both) as 3838 cubic km (CKM), which is rounded off to 4000 CKM (Gupta & Deshpande, 2004). Out of the total rainfall, 1869 CKM (46.7%) constitutes the average annual potential flow into rivers, and 432 CKM (10.8%) is considered as replenishable groundwater. Thus, India’s total available water resource (surface runoff plus replenishable groundwater) has been estimated as 2301 CKM. Out of the total runoff flow into rivers, utilisable surface flow in all river basins of the country has been estimated to be 690 CKM by Central Water Commission (Gupta & Deshpande, 2004; Planning Commission, 2011). Considering this, Gupta and Deshpande (2004) calculate the total estimated utilisable water for the country to be 1122 CKM (48.8% of the total available water). Gupta and Deshpande’s calculation considers 1699 CKM (42.5% of total rainfall) towards natural evaporation and transpiration by plants. Out of the total utilisable water of 1122 CKM, water usage of India is calculated to be 634 CKM, which is approximately 56.5% of the estimated utilisable water resources of the country, which indicates more than adequate availability at the aggregate level (Planning Commission, 2011). While calculating the water budget for India, there seems to be a disagreement between scholars regarding the proportion of evapotranspiration from the total precipitation. Evapotranspiration basically refers to the amount of water evaporated due to the sun (through the process of the water cycle) plus the amount of water utilised by plants for the transpiration process. Like precipitation, evapotranspiration is a dynamic process subject to variability depending upon temperature, climate and precipitation in any given year for a region. For example, it has been estimated that evapotranspiration between wet and dry seasons varies from 65.7 to 79% for Amazon Basin and 63.4–90% for California (Marengo, 2006, cited in Gupta & Deshpande, 2004: 239). Gupta and Deshpande’s estimation of 40% for India’s evapotranspiration has been, therefore, considered as significantly lower than published estimates in some other parts of the world (Narasimhan, 2008; Narasimhan & Gaur, 2009). Jain and colleagues (2007) had estimated India’s evapotranspiration as 69.5%, which also suggests significant underestimation of evapotranspiration by Gupta and Deshpande (Jain et al., 2007). India’s water budget provides a different perspective when we consider the evapotranspiration rate at an internally comparable rate of 65% of total precipitation.

2.2 Water in India: A Resource Perspective

33

Table 2.3 India’s water budget Estimation based on Gupta and Estimation based on Deshpande (2004) Narasimhan (2008) Annual Rainfall

4000 km3 km3

3840 km3 (42.5%)

2500 km3 (65% evapotranspiration)

Evaporation/transpiration

1699

Surface Runoff (flow into rivers)

1869 km3 (46.7%)

Not used in estimate

Replenishable Groundwater (RGW)

432 km3 (10.8%)

Not used in estimate

Total available water (surface runoff + RGW)

2301 km3 (57.5%)

1340 km3 (35%)

Estimated Utilisable Surface Water (EUSW)

690 km3 (17.3%)

–

Total Estimated Utilisable Water (RGW + EUSW)

1122 km3 (48.8% of total available water)

654 km3 (48.4% of 1340 CKM)

Current water Use

634 km3

634 km3

Remark

Current use well below estimated utilisable water

Current use is very close to estimated utilisable water

Source: Gupta and Deshpande (2004); and Narshimhan (2008)

Fixing a rate of 65% for evapotranspiration, Narashimhan (2008) calculated the amount of loss due to evapotranspiration to be around 2500 CMK with total precipitation of 3840 CKM. Table 2.3 compares the estimated water budget of India with a 40% evapotranspiration rate proposed by Gupta and Deshpande (2004) with that of Narashimnan’s 65% evapotranspiration rate. As indicated in the table, an evapotranspiration rate of 65% implies only 1340 CKM (35%) of water being available due to surface runoff in rivers and Replenishable Groundwater (RGW). If estimated utilisable water is 48.8% of total available water, India is left with 654 CKM of total estimated utilisable water as per Narasimhan’s calculations, which is very close to the current water use of 634 CKM and therefore implies potential challenges of water scarcity (Narasimhan, 2008; Narasimhan & Gaur, 2009). Rainfall statistics are inadequate to show the complete realities of the water scenario of India. It is a well-known fact that rain-bearing monsoon is highly unpredictable in India, and in some parts of India, it repeatedly fails across some years. Besides, rainfall in India is unevenly distributed, with Mawsynram and Cherrapunji in the Khasi Hills of Meghalaya receiving close to 11,800 mm of rain, while Thar Desert in Rajasthan receives 100 to 200 mm of rain per year. Further, the highest rainfall by itself does not ensure water security, as evidenced by reports about water shortages in Cherrapunji (Banerjee, 2018; Simmons, 2008). Besides, rainfall in India is unevenly distributed during the monsoon season. Even though most part of India receives 100 h of precipitation in a year, nearly half of it is obtained in a span of only 20 h (Vani, 2005). Uncertainty, variability and spatial and temporal concentration

34 Table 2.4 Rivers, Canals and other inland water bodies of India

2 Water: Perspectives, Prospects and Reforms in India Water bodies

Area

Rivers and Canals (in sq. km)

1,95,095 (sq. km)

Other water bodies (in M. ha) Reservoirs

2.93 (M. ha)

Tanks and ponds

2.43 (M. ha)

Brackish Water

1.15 (M. ha)

Flood plain Lakes and derelict water bodies 0.80 (M. ha) Total other water bodies

7.31 (M. ha)

Source Water & Related Statistics, 2015. Central Water Commission, Govt. of India

have been some of the characteristics of the Indian monsoon, which makes it challenging to generalise water scenarios in India based on annual average precipitation data. India’s Surface Water Resources: India’s share of world’s land resources and population constitutes approximately 2.54 and 16%, respectively. Yet, only about 4% of world’s renewable water resources exist in India (Iyer, 2003). The inland surface water resources of India include a large array of water bodies, which are further classified as rivers and canals; reservoirs; tanks and ponds; lakes and derelict water bodies; and brackish water. Albeit disagreement over the exact water resources available in India, information is available regarding the approximate length of rivers and canals and coverage area of other water bodies. The Ministry of Agriculture, Government of India, estimates the total length of rivers and canals of India to be 1,95,095 km., while the other water bodies cover about 7.3 million hectares (see Table 2.4). Among the water bodies of India, reservoirs cover a maximum area of 2.93 million hectares, followed by tanks and ponds (2.43 Mha) and brackish water bodies (1.15 Mha). Regarding the reservoirs, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Odisha and Andhra Pradesh comprise the maximum area, together occupying over 50% of the country’s total reservoirs. Besides reservoirs, most of the other water bodies such as tanks, ponds and lakes are in Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Karnataka and West Bengal, which together account for more than half of these water bodies (see Table 2.5). The rivers and canals of India are spread unevenly across the country, with northern states benefitting from Himalayan glaciers so that Uttar Pradesh and Jammu & Kashmir have over 25,000 km of the river (CWC, 2015). The water resource potential of the country has been calculated, taking into consideration the runoff in rivers and canals and groundwater deposits. Of the many rivers in India, 12 are classified as major rivers, having a catchment area of 252.8 million hectares (Mha), of which the Ganga–Brahmaputra–Meghna system has a major catchment area of 110 Mha. The catchment area of medium rivers is estimated at 25 Mha (UNICEF, FAO and SaciWATERs, 2013). The total water resource potential of the country has been estimated to be about 1869 km3 (Cubic Kilo Metre—CKM),

2.2 Water in India: A Resource Perspective

35

Table 2.5 State-wise distribution of inland water resources of India State

Rivers and canals (Length in km)

Other water bodies (Area in lakh (100,000) Hectares) Reservoirs

Tanks and Ponds

Flood plain lakes and Derelict water bodies

Brackish water

Total other water bodies

Odisha

4500

2.56

1.23

1.80

4.30

9.89

Andhra Pradesh

11.514

2.34

5.17

–

0.60

8.11

Karnataka

9,000

4.40

2.90

–

0.10

7.4

Tamil Nadu

7,420

5.70

0.56

0.07

0.60

6.93

West Bengal

2,526

0.17

2.76

0.42

2.10

5.45

Kerala

3.092

0.30

0.30

2.43

2.40

5.43

Uttar Pradesh

28,500

1.38

1.61

1.33

-

4.32

Gujarat

3,865

2.43

0.71

0.12

1.00

4.26

Maharashtra

16,000

2.99

0.72

-

0.12

3.83

Arunachal Pradesh

2,000

-

2.76

0.42

–

3.18

Rajasthan

5,290

1.20

1.80

–

–

3

Madhya Pradesh

17,088

2.27

0.60

–

–

2.87

Others (including UTs)

98,891

3.52

3.21

1.39

0.33

8.45

Total

195,094.6

29.26

24.33

7.98

11.55

73.12

Source Water & Related Statistics, 2015. Central Water Commission, Govt. of India

after accounting for natural processes of evaporation, which spreads across 20 river basins of India. However, out of the potential water resources available, only 690 CKM of surface water and another 433 CKM of replenishable groundwater are considered utilisable water (CWC, 2015). Table 2.6 depicts the basin-wise water resources potential of India. It is evident from the table that the river basin of Ganga– Brahmaputra–Meghna contributes around 60% of the total water resource potential and 40% of the total utilisable water resources of the country. India’s Groundwater Resources: India’s Replenishable Groundwater (RGW) resources are estimated to be 432 km3 , which is the sum total of natural recharges from precipitation comprising of 342 km3 and 90 km3 through potential recharge augmentation from canal irrigation systems. The distribution of groundwater across the country is unevenly distributed, with 14 states comprising more than 90% of total Replenishable Groundwater available (CWC, 2015). Figure 2.1 indicates that while Uttar Pradesh holds 17.86% (77.19 km3

36

2 Water: Perspectives, Prospects and Reforms in India

Table 2.6 Basin-wise water resources potential of India (km3 /year) Sl. no

River Basin

Catchment area (sq. Km)

1

Indus (up top Border)

2

Ganga–Brahmaputra–Meghna

3,21,289

Average water resources potential

Utilisable surface water resources

Replenishable groundwater

73.31

46.0

26.5

(a) Ganga

8,61,452

525.02

250.0

171.6

(b) the Brahmaputra

1,94,413

537.24

24.0

35.1

(c) Barak and others

41,723

3

Godavari

4

Krishna

5

Cauvery

81,155

6

Subarnarekha

7

Brahmani and Baitarani

8

Mahanadi

9

Pennar

55,213

10

Mahi

11 12

48.36

3,12,812

110.54

76.3

40.6

2,58,948

78.12

58.0

26.4

21.36

19.0

12.3

29,196

12.37

6.8

1.8

51,822

28.48

18.3

4.1

66.88

50.0

16.5

6.32

6.9

4.9

34,842

11.02

3.1

4.0

Sabarmati

21,674

3.81

1.9

3.2

Narmada

98,796

45.64

34.5

10.8

13

Tapi

65,145

14.88

14.5

8.3

14

West flowing rivers from Tapi to Tadri

55,940

87.41

11.9

17.7

15

West flowing rivers from Tadri to Kanyakumari

56,177

113.53

24.3

–

16

East flowing rivers between Mahanadi to Pennar

86,643

22.52

13.1

18.8

17

East flowing rivers between Pennar and Kanyakumari

1,00,139

16.46

16.5

18.2

18

West flowing rivers of Kutch & Saurashtra, including Luni

3,21,851

15.10

15.0

11.2

1,41,589

(continued)

2.2 Water in India: A Resource Perspective

37

Table 2.6 (continued) Sl. no

River Basin

19

Area of inland drainage in Rajasthan desert

20

Minor rivers draining to Myanmar (Burma) and Bangladesh

Total

Catchment area (sq. Km) –

36,302

Average water resources potential

Utilisable surface water resources

Replenishable groundwater

Negligible

–

–

31.00

–

–

1869.37

690.1

432.0

Source Author’s compilation from Water & Related Statistics, 2015. Central Water Commission, Govt. of India; Gupta and Deshpande (2004) for replenishable groundwater column

Fig. 2.1 State-wise division of Replenishable Groundwater (RGW) Resource of India (km3 /year). Source Water & Related Statistics, 2015. Central Water Commission, Govt. of India

out of 432 km3 ) of groundwater potential of the country, states like Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Karnataka possess only 2.76, 2.87 and 3.94% of groundwater potential, respectively. According to World Bank, India is one of the largest consumers of groundwater, with an estimated usage of 230 km3 (53.24%) per year. More than 60% of water usage is for irrigation, and 85% of drinking water is dependent upon groundwater sources (World Bank, 2010). According to the Central Groundwater Board (CGWB), out of the total groundwater potential of India, 361 km3 is available for irrigation, and 71 km3 is available for domestic, industrial and other usages (Kumar, Singh & Sharma, 2005). Table 2.7 depicts the estimations given by CGWB regarding total

38

2 Water: Perspectives, Prospects and Reforms in India

Table 2.7 Groundwater resources of India (km3 /year) Description

Groundwater resources (in km3 /year)

Total replenishable groundwater resource

432.7

Provision for domestic, industrial and other uses

71

Available groundwater resource for irrigation

361

Utilisable groundwater resource for irrigation (90% of available)

325

Total utilisable groundwater resource (Sum drinking, industry and irrigation)

396

Source Kumar, Singh and Sharma (2005)

replenishable groundwater resource, provision for domestic, industrial and irrigation uses and utilisable groundwater resources for future use. Over extraction of groundwater has been a concern for quite some years. It has been estimated that groundwater contributes over 78% of the total ultimate irrigation potential through minor irrigation schemes (CWC, 2015). During the 1950s and until the late 1960s, the proportion of area irrigated through surface water was higher than available groundwater. However, since the 1970s, there has been an unprecedented rise in groundwater usage with respect to the net irrigated area of India (see Fig. 2.2). Changes in cropping pattern favouring High Yield Variety (HYV) crops and growing demand for water since the green revolution, together with a limited supply of surface water, have led to an ever-increasing demand for groundwater since the early 1970s. Saha reports, “until the 1960s, India’s farmers owned just a few tens of thousands of mechanical pumps using diesel or electricity to pump water; today India has over 20 million modern water extraction structures” (Shah, 2011: 186). It

Fig. 2.2 Net Irrigated Area by Source during 1950–2013 (area in ‘000 hectares) Source Agricultural Statistics, Directorate of Economics & Statistics, Ministry of Agriculture, GoI

2.2 Water in India: A Resource Perspective

39

is now estimated that three-fourths of farmers in India depend upon groundwater, with nearly 25% of farm households having a tube well and another 50% of households purchasing groundwater from tube well owners (Shah, 2008). NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment satellite (GRACE) suggests that during 2002 to 2008, Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan utilised about 109 km3 of water, leading to a decline of the water table to 0.33 m per annum (UNICEF, FAO and SaciWATERs, 2013). Central Groundwater Board (CGWB)’s 2011 estimation reveals that groundwater in 75–90% of the area of Punjab and 45–70% of the area in Delhi, Haryana and Karnataka is overexploited in the country. Overexploitation of groundwater, otherwise referred to as ‘water mining’ (Iyer, 2003), has led to depletion of water table in some areas and increased salinity in coastal zones of Gujarat. The emerging water markets in agriculture (Shah, 1993) have also accelerated the extraction of groundwater through tube-wells and borewells. Consequently, in response to a public interest case regarding environmental concerns, the Supreme Court of India proposed the establishment of a regulatory authority, which resulted in the establishment of the Groundwater Regulatory Authority (GWRA) of India in 1997. Per Capita Availability of Water in India Per capita availability of water is often taken as an indicator to understand the overall water scenario of a country. An availability of above 1700 cubic metres (m3 ) of per capita water is considered a water-secure situation. When per capita average water supply drops below 1700 cubic metres (m3 ), the scenario is described as ‘water stressed’; and an area experiences ‘water scarcity’ when water availability drops below 1000 cubic metres (m3 ) per person. Further, a decrease in water availability below 500 cubic metres (m3 ) is described as a scenario of ‘absolute water scarcity’ (Falkenmark, 1989, 1990). Table 2.8 depicts the average per capita availability of water in India from 1951 to 2100. As is evident from the table, the per capita water availability was 5177.05 cubic metres (m3 ) in 1951, which has declined to less than half of that availability since the 2000s due to increased water demand. With 1869.37 km3 of total available water in 20 rivers basins of the country, India managed its water demand until 2001 but became ‘water stressed’ (