Water Matters

GS Ranganathan, Chairman of Ion Exchange, deems a creative synergy between the Government, NGOs and agriculturists essential for surviving the current water crunch

Why the scarcity?
Water is essential for agriculture as it is for all life. Rain and snow are the main sources of all water. India is more fortunate than most other countries due to the levels of rainfall that it receives and yet we seem helplessly dependent on the monsoons. Why are we helpless when our history shows that for centuries people managed their water resources much better than we have been able to? There was much more forest cover and forests are among the best rain storage systems. They provide natural watersheds for rivers to flow longer. The state of Karnataka alone has over 30,000 such tanks, but most of them are ruined and silted or put to other use. This deplorable condition exists entirely due to the gross neglect of water management. 

India has a geographical area less than half of either US or China but our cultivated area is only 43 per cent, which exceeds the cultivated land in China and is about the same as in US. It is much more than it should be because more than half the forest cover has been removed in the last 60 years. The agricultural productivity of China and US is almost double compared to ours. A third of the cultivated land is irrigated in India and the Green Revolution is currently in a decline because the 20 million tube wells it created have caused ground water levels to fall precipitously since more water was extracted than replaced by rain. Due to excessive seepage the canal network has caused ground water to rise to the surface increasing the level of dissolved salts in water and in the soil where they concentrate on evaporation, so that 15 per cent of such land has been salinised and made unfit for cultivation.  It is not difficult to understand the State of the World Report 1999 of the Worldwatch Institute which predicts India’s harvest will be reduced by 25 percent by 2025 if water scarcity continues. 

What is the solution?
The solution is to give wartime priority to water management techniques practiced for generations, now neglected. Reforestation of watersheds and desilting and renovation of all existing tanks must be done and new ones constructed. There is a very large tank of several hundred acres I visited in Penukonda Taluk, Anantpur District of Andhra Pradesh two years ago that has been in existence from the time of the Vijayanagar Kingdom. It requires desilting to serve its purpose. There are 80 tanks in the historic fort of Chitorgarh alone.

Priority should be given to watershed development for our arid agricultural land, which receive low rainfall and where the poorest half of our people live. These are regions capable of increasing agricultural production to make up for the decrease which would otherwise be inevitable. Many, nutritional crops like millets and pulses could be grown with the additional irrigation possible with constructing effective watershed structures. Rural incomes would as a result eventually rise.

Micro irrigation
While ensuring water security, water conservation is also necessary.  Drip irrigation is the new version of pot irrigation known for centuries where an earthenware porous pot of water with a small hole at the bottom is buried near a plant, a foot or so deep near the root-zone, with a lid to keep the soil out and to replenish the water once in several days. A mulch of stones, leaves, twigs and grass would slow down evaporation and keep the soil around the plant moist, so irrigation can be reduced. This method still in use, is suitable for small holdings where a family can attend to the irrigation. It needs more labour but less expense and reduces waste.

Reduction of synthetic inputs
Pesticides have recently caught public attention because of their presence in bottled water. Much greater attention must be focused on pesticides in water used for irrigation. It has been reported for several years, more in the international press than Indian, that high levels of pesticides exist in Indian wheat, rice, vegetables and fruit and DDT levels being the highest in the world, it is reportedly also present in high quantities in mother’s milk. This is another extremely important reason for rainwater harvesting as it would...

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