Mint Sustainability Summit: Water stress will affect 60 crore Indians, says Anuj Kanwal of Jal Shakti ministry

The way to solve water crises in India is to deploy ways of using water efficiently and not the well-publicised concept of conservation, said Anuj Kanwal, commissioner (command area development & water management & bureau of water use efficiency), department of water resources, river development and Ganga rejuvenation, Jal Shakti Ministry.

“We are talking about using water properly and not overusing it,” Kanwal said at the Mint Sustainability Summit 2024 on Tuesday. “Water stress is going to affect around 60 crore Indians,” he added.

According to a report, the river basins of the Brahmaputra and Godavari are only ones that are in good shape among the 20 in India, Kanwal said.

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He also said it's important to find ways to use water efficiently in farming as irrigation uses the most water. He added that farmers are taking more water out of the ground than they need. If this water is used more efficiently, I can be diverted to other places, he added. The government is thinking of introducing "smart irrigation”, to ensure this, he said.

More industrial use needed

Kanwal added that India uses more water than other nations for agriculture, and that share of water used for industrial development will have to increase if India is to become a developed country. “We are striving to have chief manufacturing factories in India and that is very water-intensive,” Kanwal said. “Even mobile screen display manufacturing, for which we’re striving to create manufacturing in India, consumes a lot of water.”

To use water more efficiently, we have to start by looking at the source, Kanwal said. “One farmer is taking 1 lakh litres in a day but for 1 hectare of gehu (wheat) farming, a maximum of 40,000 litres is required in a day,” he said. “We should not push for the benefit of just one sector; we see all the sectors as a whole.”

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Kanwal said that Saudi Arabia was the world's largest wheat exporter until 2000, but when they realised that it would affect their groundwater levels, they changed their policy and stopped exporting it. “Now Saudi Arabia is the largest importer of wheat and India has become the biggest exporter.”

Kanwal said community involvement is a must for ensuring efficient usage of water. He also said that the concept of ‘water credits’ would be developed in India in the future. For the moment, he said, the concept is at a nascent stage.

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