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NEW DELHI: "India faces a turbulent water future. Unless dramatic changes are made, and made soon, the way in which the government manages water, India will have neither have the cash to maintain and build a new infrastructure nor the water required for the economy and the people," according to a World Bank draft report.

The Bank is set to increase its loans to India for water-related sectors, including water resources management, irrigation, hydropower and water supply and sanitation, from $200 million to $800 million a year over the next four years. The country's development of water infrastructure is not accompanied by an improvement in governance of water resources and water services, says the report prepared by John Briscoe, country director for Brazil and former senior water adviser for South Asia.

The Bank is expected to finance projects, which couple high-return investment with reform processes and bring knowledge about international good practice to bear on the water challenges facing India. The Bank will recruit staff and consultants who have hands-on knowledge in translating reform principles into results on the ground.

"The Indian state water apparatus still shows little interest in the key issues of the management stage: participation, incentives, water entitlements, transparency, entry of the private sector, competition, accountability, financing and environmental quality."

Making a strong case for the construction of mega-dams, the report says that India can store only relatively small quantities of its "fickle rainfall." Whereas arid rich countries (such as the United States and Australia) have built over 5,000 cu.m of water storage per capita, and middle-income countries such as South Africa, Mexico, Morocco and China can store about 1,000 cu.m per capita, Indian dams can store only 200 cu.m per person. India can store only about 30 days of rainfall, compared to 900 days in major river basins in arid areas of developed countries.

The broader messages are that the economic ideas of the 1991 economic reforms must be drilled down from the regulatory and financial sectors into the real sectors (including the water sector) if India is to have sustainable economic growth. The role of the state must change from that of builder and controller to creator of an enabling environment of the actions of large and small water users.

Inadequate irrigation

"Evidence abounds of the inability of the state water machinery to address even problems of the provision of public irrigation and water supply services. User charges are negligible, resulting in lack of accountability and insufficient generation of revenue even for operations and maintenance. The gap between tariff and value of irrigation and water supply services has fuelled endemic corruption."

The report says the decline in the quality of public irrigation and water supply services will normally be expected to produce social unrest and political pressure. But to the (temporary) rescue of Indian society came a simple and remarkable transformational technology: the tubewell.

Gargi Parsai

The Hindu, 1st October, 2005