Opinion With monsoon here, we must ‘catch the rain’

India is considered a water-stressed country, with a little more than 1,400 cubic metres per capita per year. With just about 4 per cent of the world’s freshwater resources, India must cater to 18 per cent of the global human population, and a bovine population of 19 crore, for their food and drinking water needs. India utilises 85 per cent of its water in agriculture, but with poor water-use efficiency due to widely practised irrigation techniques like flood and over-irrigation. India is the world’s largest extractor of groundwater, pumping out 250 billion cubic metres (bcm) from its deep aquifers. But very few bother to replenish the water extracted. Water is taken for granted.

Why catch the rain? Simply because rains are the only source to replenish water. Rains in India arrive during the monsoons, averaging 1,170 mm annually, in about 100 hours a year. That too with vast spatial variations: Western Rajasthan receives 313 mm compared to the Andamans’ 2,967 mm. Eighty per cent of total annual flow in the Himalayan rivers and 90 per cent in peninsular Indian rivers occur during the monsoons. This abundance of rainfall often causes floods, wreaking havoc, with excess water draining into the sea.

If water extraction continues with impunity and without replenishment using abundant seasonal rainwater, the tap could run dry one day. We store only about 12–15 per cent of our water. After the floods in the rainy season, we encounter severe drinking water shortages in summer. To break this cycle, proper water management is required. We need to increase water-use efficiency, push for circularity in water for demand-side management, and conserve and store as much rainwater as possible for better supply-side management.

Nature gives us enough water to manage this, but we are wasting these precious resources, literally sending them “down the drain”. There is very poor rainwater conservation. The water sector operates in silos. With multiple ministries and departments handling water, coordination and cooperation are essential. The Ministry of Jal Shakti in the Government of India and state departments mainly focus on dams (construction, maintenance, and irrigation systems), which require huge capital outlays. Little attention is given to conserving rainwater, which is a relatively low-cost affair.

While acknowledging the role of large, multi-purpose dams, with their high capital, operational and environmental costs, there is a need to encourage decentralised, in situ storage of rainwater. This is less costly, highly environment-friendly, equitable, participatory, and hence democratic. Small is beautiful. We need to encourage small, localised rainwater harvesting systems suited to the agro-climatic and sub-soil conditions. Appropriate technologies must be properly disseminated among local communities. We also need to strengthen the institutions of the Jal Shakti Kendras, envisaged in the Jal Shakti Abhiyan: Catch the Rain campaign.

Urban areas pose more challenges compared to rural ones. High land values have “transformed” many water bodies into real estate properties. The dumping of debris and solid-liquid waste has “shrunk” the rest. Buildings, roads, concrete, vitrified tiles and high land densification have left little room for water to percolate into underground aquifers, resulting in almost zero groundwater recharge. Water also spills over into low-lying areas, causing urban floods.

Catching the rain, where it falls and when it falls, has many advantages. It recharges and raises the groundwater table, significantly reducing the energy used and the cost of pumping it out with electrical and diesel pumps. India uses nearly 25 per cent of its energy for pumping groundwater. Raising the water table is also of strategic importance. It improves soil moisture, revitalising topsoil with thriving colonies of beneficial microorganisms. In hilly areas, “catching the rain to make running water walk, walking water stop, and stopping water percolate” can help rejuvenate spring sheds and even reduce landslides. In urban areas, it will reduce monsoon flooding and mitigate summer water crises.
To promote rainwater harvesting, governments and municipalities should provide financial and non-financial incentives. Resident Welfare Associations should be brought on board with tax rebates and other incentives. Corporates and industries should also step forward, initiating programmes that go beyond just reusing and recycling their water. Water bodies, stepwells, and old wells should be identified, protected, and deepened.

All of this must start immediately so that, come monsoon, we are ready with more storage space to catch as much rainwater as possible. To begin with, let us maintain the existing rainwater harvesting systems in our homes — often forgotten after the Occupancy Certificate is obtained from the municipality. We need to make jal andolan a jan andolan.

The writer is Senior Fellow, Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi, and former Mission Director, National Water Mission, popularly known as Rain Man. Views are personal