Making Invisible Groundwater Visible

February 09, 2018

We have heard of the impending water crisis in the coastal city of Cape Town in South Africa with the city’s taps likely to run dry. But the scenario in India could be far worse if we don’t sit up and take note, warned Rohini Nilekani, Chairperson and Founder, Arghyam. Nilekani, a pioneering philanthropist in the water sector, was in conversation with Dr. Ravina Aggarwal, Director, Columbia Global Centers | Mumbai, as part of an ongoing lecture series investigating groundwater issues in India.

Over the past 12 years, Nilekani’s Arghyam Foundation has funded initiatives across India for sustainable water and sanitation, directly benefitting 5 million people approximately. Arghyam also created the India Water Portal, which has emerged as the leading online knowledge resource for academics and researchers working on water issues in India.

Nilekani shared her reasons for investing in water and setting up Arghyam, “When we started out, there was not a single Indian foundation working on the issue of water, despite a huge water crises looming over us. We learnt that while the Government had spent more than INR 40 million over several decades on surface water, and was building irrigation infrastructure related to surface water and rivers, people in India were actually using groundwater.” She was alluding to the fact that India draws more groundwater than the United States and China combined.

According to Nilekani, the magnitude of the imminent water crisis may often be lost on residents of megacities such as Mumbai, where 24/7 piped-water supply is common. Such free-flowing water availability, however, remains elusive for millions across the country. “As we speak, we have 500 million people in the country at the risk of some type of water contamination. Unless we are able to make invisible groundwater visible, there is no way it can be used sustainably,” she said.

Given the lack of effective policy and regulation in India, Nilekani suggested that a multi-stakeholder system of managing water resources is required. “Groundwater management needs to be participatory as water is a common pool resource. In the absence of community participation, you are going to have issues of water not being distributed equally,” she said, reiterating the importance of using good science, data, and the ability of society to use groundwater more innovatively and efficiently.

Among current gaps in water interventions, she highlighted the water-sanitation nexus where poorly designed toilet waste streams contaminate water reserves. Other priority areas she pointed to include the preservation of springs as valuable sources of groundwater, incentivizing hydro-geological experts to train citizens to understand groundwater and budget usage better, and more efficient crop irrigation strategies.

Nilekani also underscored the importance of research, particularly action research, in delivering workable solutions to all these challenges. “If you aren’t able to connect the dots, your projects are not going to deliver. You need long-term studies, good data, and academics to give real usable knowledge. We also need to be able to train a lot of people rapidly and we need to be able to make scarce training resources un-scarce.”