Water Woes - The root cause of the Indian farmer’s woes is water shortage. This problem will only worsen — to the point that it will become far more serious than a mere liability.

Water Woes

The root cause of the Indian farmer’s woes is water shortage. This problem will only worsen — to the point that it will become far more serious than a mere liability.

Earlier this year, a NITI Aayog report laid bare the seriousness of India’s water crisis: 600 million people face acute water shortage and 200,000 die each year because they have no access to clean water. By 2020, 21 cities will run out of groundwater. Just over a decade from now, water woes could cause a 6% loss in GDP. The report made major headlines and prompted many TV debates

India can’t afford to ignore its water crisis. Neither can South Asia or the world. Water scarcity is a clear and present danger, not a distant threat, and global warming heightens this threat. This month, international researchers from the U.S. and South and Central Asia released new research on major river basins at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington. Their findings reveal that snow melt accounts for nearly three-quarters of the water in two of India’s key basins — the Brahmaputra and Indus — and nearly half of the water in the Ganga, the country’s largest river basin.

In the coming years, global warming portends higher temperatures and less snow, resulting in dramatic supply reductions in key Indian water lifelines. With rising demand for and consumption of water, and longstanding mismanagement of precious existing resources, fuelled by state failures to embrace water-saving technologies, a perfect storm is set to come into sharp relief. The implications for economic growth and public health are stark.

The water crisis is not just a domestic problem. Pakistan and China face similar water woes. Increasing water stress heightens prospects for hydro-related tensions and conflict, particularly given the absence of robust trans-boundary water accords. The exception is the Indus Waters Treaty; yet that arrangement too has come under increasing strain.

Today, water is generally seen as one of the reasons for the critical farmer constituency being so unhappy. Yet, not far down the road, when water becomes a more serious concern, it will be impossible to ignore — not just as an issue, but as an existential issue.