Relevance: GS-3: Conservation, environmental pollution and degradation.

Key Phrases: water crisis, critical, over-exploited, Central Ground Water Board, PMKSY, water conservation, Jal Shakti Abhiyan, Catch The Rain, MNREGS, traditional water bodies, AMRUT, storage capacity.

Why in News?

• Water resources are under stress, there is a need to renovation of Traditional Water Bodies.

Background:

• India’s water crisis is a constant. Although India has 16 per cent of the world’s population, the country possesses only four per cent of the world’s freshwater resources. India is water-stressed due to changing weather patterns and repeated droughts. And the worst suffers of this crisis are mostly women.
• As many as 256 of 700 districts in India have reported ‘critical’ or ‘over-exploited’ groundwater levels according to the most recent Central Ground Water Board data.
• This means that getting water in these places has grown more difficult as the water table has dropped. Three-fourths of India’s rural families lack access to piped, drinkable water and must rely on unsafe sources.
• India has become the world’s largest extractor of groundwater, accounting for 25 per cent of the total. Some 70 per cent of our water sources are contaminated and our major rivers are dying because of pollution.
• Wells, ponds and tanks are drying up as groundwater resources come under increasing pressure due to over-reliance and unsustainable consumption. This has escalated the water crisis and placed an even greater burden of accessing water on women.

What is needed to manage this crisis?

• Water resources projects, including rainwater harvesting and water conservation, renovation of traditional water bodies and tanks, reuse of water and recharge structures, watershed development and afforestation, etc. are planned, funded, executed and maintained by the State Governments themselves as per their own resources and priorities.
• Role of Government of India is limited to being catalytic, providing technical support and in some cases partial financial assistance in terms with the ongoing schemes of Government of India.

Government Initiatives to effective Water Management:

Some of the initiatives taken by Government of India, to supplement the efforts of the State Governments in this regard, are as below:

• Under Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana (PMKSY), financial assistance is being provided, inter-alia, for
  • Repair, renovation and restoration of water bodies.
  • Development of ground water based irrigation in sustainable regions.
  • Integrated development of rainfed areas towards soil and water conservation.
  • Regeneration of ground water, and arresting runoff.
  • Promoting extension activities relating to water harvesting & management.
  • Promoting efficient water conveyance and precision water application devices like drips, sprinklers, pivots, rain-guns in the farm.
  • Construction of micro-irrigation structures to supplement source creation activities.
• Central Ground Water Board (CGWB), is entrusted with the responsibilities of providing scientific inputs for management, exploration, monitoring, assessment, augmentation and regulation of ground water resources of the country. Several guidelines and manuals have been prepared for rainwater harvesting.
• Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) is implementing plantation/afforestation schemes in the forest areas with participatory approach.
• In 2019, Jal Shakti Abhiyan was launched by the Government. This was followed in 2021, by “Jal Shakti Abhiyan: Catch The Rain” (JSA:CTR) campaign. Focused interventions under these annual campaigns taken up by the Government of India and the State Governments, include rainwater harvesting & water conservation, enumerating, geo-tagging & making inventory of all water bodies; preparation of scientific plans for water conservation, setting up Jal Shakti Kendras in all districts, intensive afforestation, and awareness generation. Activities such as renovation of traditional and other water bodies/ tanks, enumeration, geo-tagging and making inventory of all water bodies, and removal of encroachments of tanks/ lakes, and de-silting of tanks, are also included under JSA:CTR.
• Government has launched the first Census of Water bodies in convergence with the Sixth round of Minor Irrigation Census (reference year 2017-18), under the Centrally Sponsored Scheme- “Irrigation Census”. The objective of the Census of Water bodies is to develop a national database of all water bodies in the country.
• Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MNREGS) has provisions for public works relating to natural resource management, water conservation and water harvesting structures to augment and improve ground water like underground dykes, earthen dams, stop dams, check dams and roof top rain water harvesting structures in public buildings.
• Rejuvenation of water bodies, including traditional water bodies, is also a component under Water Supply sector of Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) Scheme under Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs. Further, AMRUT 2.0 launched in October, 2021, with a total outlay targets to promote circular economy of water through development of city water balance plan for each city focusing on recycle/reuse of treated sewage, rejuvenation of water bodies and water conservation.

Way Forward:

• Apart from the inefficient use of water in all sectors, there is also a reduction in natural storage capacity and deterioration in catchment efficiency. The issues are source sustainability, renovation and maintenance of traditional water harvesting structures, grey water management infrastructure, groundwater recharge, increasing water use efficiency, and reuse of water.
• Looking into these issues may not be adequate to address all the problems. Nevertheless, these measures will help to reduce demand supply gap in many places, and the remaining areas of scarcity can be catered to using small-scale projects. The axiom that today’s water system is co-evolving and the challenges are mainly management and governance has been globally well accepted. Water projects are politically charged and manifest an interplay of social relations, social power, and technology.
• It is important to include less predictable variables, revise binary ways of thinking of ‘either or’, and involve non-state actors in decision-making processes. A hybrid water management system is necessary, where (along with professionals and policy makers) the individual, a community and society have definite roles in the value chain. The challenge is not to be techno-centric but anthropogenic.

Source: PIB

Mains Question:

Q. What should be the steps for augmentation, conservation and efficient management of water resources? Critically analyse.