Water Crisis in India

Gary W. Clendenen, Siena College

James F. Booker, Siena College
Michael A. Card, University of South Dakota
Raj Devasagayam, Siena College

This dam has been built with the unrelenting toil of man for the benefit of man-
kind and therefore is worthy of worship. Such dams are the temples of modern India.
May you call it a Temple or a Gurdwara or a Mosque, it inspires our admiration and
reverence.
—Prime Minister J. L. Nehru
December 1963
Inauguration of Bhakra-Nagal Dam

D
inesh Shindey1 watched as swirling, muddy water from the heavy rains
spilled over the bank of a canal and lapped at the doors of nearby shacks.
Flooding was common in India during the summer monsoon rains which
sometimes exceeded fifty inches in one day in parts of the country. Yet, drought was
also very common during the rest of the year, particularly in far western India, parts of
which averaged less than five inches of rain each year. The old public irrigation system
established by the British in the pre-independence years had crumbled from lack of
maintenance. As a result, life was very difficult for most of India’s 800 million poor
farmers who simply had to wait, and pray, for rain. As Shindey contemplated these
issues, the lights in his office flickered and his computer screen went dark. As a former
Central Minister of Power for India, he knew that power outages were common due
partly to insufficient power generation and partly due to rapidly increasing population
and demand.
On this day of torrential rain in 2006, Shindey was absorbed in a massive water and
power generation project that might lead to a better life for millions. Or, it might well
be a very expensive environmental boondoggle—he was not sure which yet. The prime
minister of India had appointed Shindey to form and chair a high-level task force to
study a massive project called the River Linking Project (RLP) that would essentially
reengineer the water systems of India. A primary goal of the RLP was to annually
transfer trillions of gallons of water from basins with excess water in north/northeast

Copyright © 2014 by the Case Research Journal and by Gary W. Clendenen, James F. Booker, Michael A.
Card, and Raj Devasagayam. An earlier draft of this case was presented at the 2011 NACRA conference.

Water Crisis in India 21

 India to basins with water shortages in west/central/southern India (see Figure 1).
The government estimated that the project would cost US$123 billion, or roughly 25
percent of India’s annual gross domestic product, but that estimate was controversial.
Others believed that corruption and mismanagement would result in a much higher
cost or questioned whether such a large project could ever be completed in corruption
prone India.
The charge for Shindey’s task force was to identify stakeholders; consider the inter-
national dimensions and socioeconomic and environmental impacts of the project;
and provide guidance about whether to proceed with the RLP. If the project was found
worthy, the task force would begin work to build a coalition of support for it. Shindey
would provide the task force’s recommendation to the prime minister, the president,
and the Supreme Court of India and help frame the government’s approach to resolv-
ing water issues. It was a daunting responsibility. The stakeholders were numerous;
the financial cost was very high; and the political environment was complex. Shindey
leaned back in his chair and sighed at the complexity of it all as he prepared for a meet-
ing he had organized with a prominent critic of the RLP named S. Kannan, one of
many meetings he had organized over the past few years.

Figure 1: Map of India Showing Components of the River Linking Project (RLP)

Source: International Water Management Institute of India.

22 Case Research Journal • Volume 34 • Issue 3 • Summer 2014

S. Kannan, Advocate for the Decentralized Approach
Kannan was a highly respected former Secretary of the Ministry of Water Resources for
India and a recognized authority on water issues. When asked by a journalist about his
views on the use of dams to help solve the water problem, he replied:
All dams are major interventions in nature. They alter geography and local climate,
have serious environmental/ecological consequences, and disrupt the lives and liveli-
hoods of large numbers of people. They also involve questions of control, equity and
social justice. As the World Commission on Dams (WCD) found out, their benefits
(irrigation, hydro-electric power) often come at extremely high costs and go to one set
of people, leaving another set to shoulder the social costs. I would therefore like to say
“Yes, big dams are bad and should be avoided.” Unfortunately, I can’t.
Kannan knew there were no clear-cut answers to the water problems in India and he
wondered why anyone would limit their thinking to simplistic “for” or “against” state-
ments or even economic considerations alone. “Linking thirty-seven rivers through
thirty canal links, do they even comprehend the enormity of this task?” He had further
explained to the interviewer:
We should first consider what can be done in practical terms and in limited contexts.
From that point of view, and in the context of water resources, I think it is necessary to
explore all non-dam possibilities of meeting future needs before we opt for large-dam
projects. That is why I have been arguing that big-dam or other large scale projects
should be projects of the last resort, to be chosen only if they are the unique option, or
the best of available options in a given case.
Kannan advocated a decentralized approach that would pass much of the respon-
sibility for water issues from the federal government to the states, which were better
suited to manage demand and oversee the smaller projects he believed more worth-
while than the RLP. Even with his intimate knowledge of Indian culture and politics,
he wondered why this was so difficult a concept to grasp:
How long are we in India going to honor the code of age over innovative thinking, of
authoritarian dictate over empirical evidence? How long must India be held hostage to
its age old culture of black and white solutions over compromises?
In a land where rivers were referred to as “mothers,” Kannan believed that India
should treat the water supply with respect rather than as an endless fountain of life
earned through prayer. He looked forward to meeting with Shindey and his task force.

Modern India2
With a population of more than one billion living in an area only one-third the size
of the U.S., India was densely populated. In 2004, the United Nations predicted that
India would continue to grow rapidly reaching a population of 1.6 billion by 2070
(Figure 2), resulting in an extra 500 million people needing water. Nearly 80 percent
of the population lived on tiny, subsistence farms and in rural villages where it was a
struggle to stay alive and feed families. Although the population living in cities had
doubled in the thirty years leading up to 2006, experts predicted that most poor, rural
families would still be trying to scratch a meager existence from their small farms for
the foreseeable future.3

Water Crisis in India 23

 Figure 2: Population of India with High, Medium, and Low Growth Forecasts

2,500

2,000

Population (millions)
1,500

1,000

500

0
1950 1970 1990 2010 2030 2050 2070 2090

Year

Source: United Nations, 2004.

In spite of the rapid population growth, hundreds of millions of Indians had been
lifted out of the worst levels of poverty within the past thirty years due to rapid eco-
nomic growth. The year 1991 was a watershed year for the economic transformation
of India from a planned socialistic economy to a liberalized market-based economy.
Under the leadership of the finance Minister of India (and subsequent Prime Minister)
Mr. Manmohan Singh, the economy grew at a rate unparalleled in earlier decades.
Figure 3 shows that the annual growth rate in the per capita GDP averaged about
2.5 percent per year until the mid-1990s when it accelerated to nearly 5 percent per
year. But even as India experienced periods of rapid economic growth throughout its
economy, 25 percent of the people remained in abject poverty in 2006.
The United Nations (UN) Development Programme (UNDP) had developed the
Human Development Index (HDI) in 1990 and published an annual report with
comparative data by nation. The HDI was a comparative measure of life expectancy,
literacy, education, and standards of living that measured the impact of economic
policies on quality of life. In contrast to the GDP which focused on total economic
activity, the HDI was used to measure the growth and general well-being of the people
living in the country.4
A review of India’s performance on the HDI from 1975 to 2005 provided a sober-
ing picture that a mere economic analysis could easily miss. Figure 4 compares the
growth of the HDI for the rapidly developing BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India,
and China) from 1975 to 2005. Not only was India the only country in this emerg-
ing group that exhibited an HDI below the world average, but India was doing little
to close the gap on its BRIC peers. In particular, while the HDI gap between India
and China was about 0.1 in 1975, the gap had risen almost 50 percent to about 0.15
by 2005. This growing gap was indicative of the challenges facing India, a monsoon-
dependent, agrarian country, where “quality of life” was directly tied to the availability,
management, conservation, and governance of water. In summary, the leadership of
India had long been committed to economic growth, but that growth was only very
slowly translating into benefits for many Indians.

24 Case Research Journal • Volume 34 • Issue 3 • Summer 2014

Figure 3: Annual Growth in per Capita GDP (PPP converted)

10.0%
Annual growth of GDP per capita

7.5%

5.0%

2.5%

0.0%

-2.5%

-5.0%
1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000
Year growth
annual grow th
5 yr moving average

Source: Heston et al., 2006.

Figure 4: Human Development Index for India versus Others

0.85
0.8
Russia
0.75
0.7 Brazil
0.65
China
0.6
0.55 India
0.5
World Average in
0.45
2005
0.4
1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005

Source: United Nations, 2005.

One reason for the poor performance of India on measures such as HDI was
widespread and systemic corruption. Ms. Anupama Jha, the executive director of
Transparency International (TI) in India said:
Corruption [in India] has led to inequality, injustice and has widened the divide
between the rich and poor. It has led to lopsided development and enriched an elite
few . . . The feeling among the public that corruption cannot be rooted out is the
biggest challenge. The feeling that no action will be taken against politicians and

Water Crisis in India 25

 administrators, no matter how corrupt they are, is a great threat to the democracy of
our country. Corruption occurs at all levels throughout India, although it is sometimes
worse at the state and local level due to lax management controls. Fighting corruption
is a daunting task but is very necessary to restore the faith of people in the system.
Founded in 1993, Transparency International (TI) was an independent global
organization measuring, reporting, researching, and fighting corruption through more
than ninety chapters worldwide. TI developed the Corruption Perceptions Index
(CPI) to rank countries by their perceived levels of corruption, as determined by
expert assessments and direct opinion surveys. In 2006, India was ranked as number
seventy-two out of 179 countries. By comparison, Denmark and Finland tied for least
corrupt; the USA ranked twenty; and both Botswana and Bhutan were ranked as less
corrupt than India (Rank thirty-four). A recent TI study had found that more than
62 percent of Indians had first-hand experience paying bribes or influence peddling to
achieve their goals in the public arena.
According to a government report,5 the causes of corruption in India included
excessive regulations, complicated taxes and licensing systems, numerous government
departments each with opaque bureaucracy and discretionary powers, monopoly by
government-controlled institutions of certain goods and services delivery, and the lack
of transparent laws and processes. Government programs were often found to be cor-
rupt in their implementation, with the benefits not reaching the intended recipients.
For example, food grain worth US$6.37 billion meant to be distributed among the
poor in the state of Uttar Pradesh in 2002 was smuggled and sold in Nepal and Ban-
gladesh. Similarly, a complex US$3.64 billion counterfeiting scandal was brought to
light in 2005 when 300 people were found selling fake bonds and revenue stamps to
bulk purchasers including banks, insurance companies, and brokerage firms. Many
police officers and other government employees were involved in the scandal.
The systemic impact of corruption on the water crisis decision had profound
implications. It was widely expected that corruption would negatively affect the imple-
mentation, progress, costs, and benefits of the massive RLP were it built. Alternatively,
corruption would also be an issue if the decentralized approach were instituted and
state governments held responsible for implementation. Under this alternative, the
bureaucracy might be more accountable to its constituents although the implementa-
tion of individual projects would undoubtedly be susceptible to favoritism, cronyism,
and kickbacks, all leading to suboptimal results and higher costs.

The Plight of One Poor Farming Family

One farmer from a rural area of northern India shared his story. This farmer’s family
did not own land—they farmed on land owned by a man who had loaned the farmer’s
grandfather Rupees 500 (about US$100 at the time) several decades earlier. The farm-
er’s family had been working the land as long as he could remember. The family kept
a share of the crops, but most went to the landlord leaving the family at the mercy of
the landlord for wages. The farmer lamented:
Our plight is not known to anyone but ourselves. The landlords are benevolent; they
try their best. But they are suffering too. The farm does not yield enough, the soil is
tired and dry. The fertilizers that we have poured into these lands, all these chemicals,
have made it worse. Back in the day we did not have fertilizers but our farms did just
fine. Now we have all these fancy chemicals in the soil and we don’t have enough to eat.
There is no water to grow the crops. Once a year is all we are able to harvest crops in

26 Case Research Journal • Volume 34 • Issue 3 • Summer 2014

 this field. A second time around it is almost completely a loss. . . . The landlord is trying
his best to make his ends meet and we are trying our best too. What little land we had,
the landlord has taken over. Even if we had the land, we wouldn’t have the money to
dig wells, so where would we get the water from? If more wells fail, the landlord suffers
even more major losses. We don’t even know where to go to get a bore well drilled. The
river is our mother. Our mother has abandoned us, we have very little hope.
Originally, the river provided enough water. However, the landlord had to drill
a well about twenty years ago when the river was dry for long periods of time. The
farmer continued:
A lack of water is the curse of the rain God. The rain God smiles upon us for a few
weeks and then we have no water. In the heat of summer, whether we would use the
water for farming or for drinking, is not an easy decision to make. Either way, we are
going to suffer. We fall sick because we drink bad, dirty water. Water that our cattle
drink as well. We go hungry because there is no food because we had no proper rain
the previous year. To not have enough water for two to three years is common and it is
getting worse. The river dries up much quicker. We have no hope, but we will do our
best to survive as we wait for our leaders to solve these problems.6

Background Related to Water7

In the 1800s, the East India Company launched an intensive period of building canals
and dams, so that managed irrigation acreage could be greatly increased. Before leaving
India, the British had overseen the construction of thousands of miles of small canals
for irrigation. During this period of time, the focus in India changed from minimal-
ist, local control along rivers to the reshaping of river basins. Although the population
of India grew rapidly in the early 1900s, the pace of urbanization decreased partly
due to the success in increasing agricultural production based on water availability.
However, all of the improvements driving agricultural production were not enough to
prevent the Bengal famine of 1942, which resulted in 4 million deaths. By the time of
independence in 1947, the focus in India remained on large, managed projects; civil
engineering was a revered career; and India was a model for large, complex irrigation
systems.
India experienced significant food scarcity in the 1950s and was on the brink of
famine again in 1961. It began to import large quantities of food, and by the mid-
1960s was highly dependent on food shipped from the United States. The inability to
feed its own population during a period without drought became an embarrassment.
Leaders began to question the limits imposed by the public, canal-based irrigation
systems, especially in an era when available spending on major water infrastructures
had declined as a percent of total expenditures, as shown in Figure 5. The government
turned to groundwater as an alternative by granting a large subsidy to farmers to defray
the cost of pumping groundwater. By 2000, the World Bank estimated that farmers
in many areas were paying only about 10 percent of the actual cost of the electric-
ity needed to pump groundwater, a subsidy that amounted to roughly 25 percent of
India’s fiscal deficit at the time. Figure 6 shows the resulting rapid growth in the use of
groundwater compared to surface water.
The subsidy had some desired effects. The number of wells increased from 200,000
in 1960 to over 21 million by 1998. India added more irrigated land during this
period than it had in the 250 years of British rule with its focus on dams and canals.

Water Crisis in India 27

 Figure 6 shows that the land irrigated from groundwater increased from 6 million
hectares8 in 1950 to over 33 million hectares by 2001, along with a forecast to 2025.
The increase resulted in higher per capita incomes in farming regions and stabilized
employment, thereby reducing poverty. The World Bank stated that “the poor and
landless have been the biggest beneficiaries of the increase in irrigated land . . .”9 In
fact, India had become very dependent on groundwater by 2005 when more than 70
percent of the crops and 85 percent of domestic use depended on groundwater. In only
forty years, India had moved from being dependent on large, public irrigation projects
to a heavy reliance on groundwater, even though the old canal system was still in use.

Figure 5: Percent of Total Planning Period Outlays Made to Major Water

Infrastructures, 1951–2002

25%
Percent of Total Plan Outlays

20%

15%

10%

5%

0%
19 6

19 1

19 6

19 9

19 4

19 8

19 0

19 5

19 0

19 2

19 7

2
–5

–6

–6

–6

–7

–7

–8

–8

–9

–9

–9

–0
51

56

61

66

69

74

78

80

85

90

92

97
19

Source: Government of India, 2004

Figure 6: Growth in Use of Groundwater 1950 to 2001 with a Forecast to 2025

Source: Briscoe and Malik, 2006.

28 Case Research Journal • Volume 34 • Issue 3 • Summer 2014

 However, there were also undesirable effects of the subsidy. Water is naturally
stored underground in aquifers composed of porous rock. Pumping water from aqui-
fers drains the water out of the aquifers. The rate at which an aquifer recharges depends
on the nature of the aquifer, amount of rain in the area, nature of the overlying geol-
ogy, and soil types. For example, most of the aquifers in the Ganges basin in north
India recharge rapidly. However, many of the aquifers in the western and central parts
of India recharge very slowly, over centuries, if not thousands or millions of years.
Effectively, farmers in these regions were pumping water that had been stored there
over the previous millennium. Water tables in many of these aquifers had dropped
precariously as farmers pumped large amounts of groundwater at highly subsidized
costs. A 1999 study by the National Commission on Water suggested that 30 percent
of the aquifers in the country had reached a critical stage and predicted that 60 percent
of the aquifers would be at a critical level by 2030.10
The options available to those whose wells went dry as water tables dropped were to
dig a deeper well where fresh water supplies would allow; go back on the canal system;
grow crops requiring far less water; or give up farming, which was not an option for
many poor families. To make matters worse, the heavy pumping resulted in a worsen-
ing of water quality in some aquifers since the rapid withdrawal of water increased
salinity and/or concentrations of arsenic and fluoride. Arsenic and fluoride poisoning
was considered an emerging endemic disease in India where it affected more than 60
million people.11
A study commissioned by the World Bank12 pointed out that the supply of ground-
water was often impacted negatively by disruptions in the supply of electricity.
Although farmers pay a small fraction of the cost of power, they endure the frustra-
tion and economic costs of supply (of electricity) that is both unreliable (not available
at predictable times) and of poor quality (with fluctuating voltage). Both problems
mean that water often cannot be pumped during critical periods in the plant growth
cycle, leading to lower crop yields and incomes for farmers. Electricity is available to
agriculture mostly during off-peak hours—sometimes for as little as three and a half
hours a day as a result of supply regulation and poor management of the network by
the utilities.
The large agricultural subsidy for pumping water had other unintended effects. For
example, the revenue was so small from sales to a small farmer that it did not matter
much if the water meter worked, so workers often failed to maintain the meters. Since
water was cheap to pump, farmers had no incentive to conserve, prevent waste, or even
to increase productivity. High efficiency drip irrigation systems in which pipes would
sparingly drip water onto plants as needed were rare, and farmers often planted crops
that used a lot of water such as boro rice. As farmers transitioned from reliance on the
old canal systems, the per capita incomes of Indians had grown, increasing sharply
the demand for water. But everything was based on the false belief that there were no
limits to the amount of groundwater that could be pumped. The high demand for
electricity to pump water strained the power infrastructure and contributed to power
outages.
Water experts Briscoe and Malik summarized their views in a report to the World
Bank:13
Bad as each of these situations—electricity subsidies, and plummeting groundwater
tables—are, the combination is lethal. Sooner or later, abstractions (water pumping)
are going to have to come into balance with the sustainable yield of an aquifer . . .

Water Crisis in India 29

 If, however, abstractions come into balance with sustainable yield and the depth (of
the water) is, say 150 meters, then this makes irrigation impossible without large and
permanent energy subsidies. This is a grave situation . . .
In 1999, the National Commission on Water assessed the overall availability of water,
the likely demands, and the implied “water available for future use.” These figures are a
stark and unequivocal portrayal of a country about to enter severe water scarcity.
India’s water and sanitation sector is woefully ill equipped to meet this growing chal-
lenge. The sector has no identity, is bankrupt, is not developing the required human
resources, and focuses primarily on adding infrastructure, not improving services.
Shindey was also concerned about the growing demand for water and the shortage
of water storage capacity:
India’s demand for water is bound to increase to formidable proportions by 2050 when
the population is expected to stabilize at 1.64 billion. As a result, gross per capita water
availability will decline from about 1,820 m3/year in 2001 to as low as 1,140 m3/year
in 2050. Total water requirement of the country for various activities by 2050 has been
estimated to be about 1,450 km3/year. This is significantly higher than the current esti-
mate of utilizable water resource potential (1,122 km3/year) that could be developed
through conventional strategies. Therefore, the present availability of water, about 500
km3/year, needs to be almost tripled to meet estimates for 2050.
The country has a per capita storage of a meager 200 m3/person for water, unlike the
U.S. that possesses 5,000 m3/person or China which provides 2,000 m3/person. To
monsoon-proof India’s water requirement, the need for more storage has to be urgently
addressed.

Governance of Water in India

Although the governance of water issues was technically left to state control, the fed-
eral government played a predominant role in major water projects. The fundamental
responsibility for water fell to the Ministry of Water Resources, but the Ministries of
Agriculture, Power, Environment and Forest, Surface Transport, and others were also
involved. In fact, permits for many projects were required from up to nine different
federal government agencies, as well as from states, before proceeding. Under the cur-
rent system, it could take years, perhaps a decade, to get the appropriate permits for
large projects.
It was difficult to manage water issues between states within India due to water
scarcity, dense populations, and because water was considered holy to the roughly 1
billion Hindus. It was easy for politicians to energize a local audience by haranguing
the theft of water by another state or city. Disputes between states were common since
most rivers in India flowed through at least two states. Excessive water withdrawals
or the dumping of pollution in one state had the potential to greatly affect the down-
stream states. Rather than a sense of coordinated sharing, the attitude was often a “use
everything you can approach” making it difficult to plan and organize across states for
efficient use of water. The RLP was founded on the idea of transferring water from
basins with excess water to basins with water shortages. However, political leaders in
states with basins deemed to have excess water by government experts often adamantly
refused to admit to even having excess water. They did not want to agree to anything
that would lessen the flow of water through their own state in the event the water was
needed in the future, or perhaps to ensure their own reelection.

30 Case Research Journal • Volume 34 • Issue 3 • Summer 2014

 The water in underground aquifers was owned by millions of landowners. There
was no meaningful regulation on the number and depth of water wells drilled, or on
the amount of water pumped. So, access to groundwater was limited only by having
the financial resources to dig, complete, and maintain a well. The hundreds of mil-
lions of poor farmers living on less than $2 per day were unable to dig wells. However,
a wealthy landowner could greatly increase his income by digging a well and using a
large irrigation pump under heavily subsidized electricity costs to suck large volumes
of water out of an aquifer. By rapidly pumping water from underground aquifers, the
wealthier farmers were effectively taking the water located underneath the small plots
of myriads of poorer neighbors who could not afford to drill wells. Of course, many
poor farmers did not own the land or the water under that land.
There was also a potential for serious international conflict given that the largest
rivers of India also flowed through neighboring countries. However, there had been
some success in cooperation on water through international treaties, including the
Indus Treaty of 1960 between Pakistan and India and the Ganga Water Treaty of 1986
between Bangladesh and India. In both cases, the success of the treaties was partly
due to the clear definition of the rights and responsibilities of all involved parties. In
particular, the treaties clearly defined how much water each country could withdraw in
years with abundant river flows as well as in years with lean river flows.
There were still unresolved issues between India and the countries of Nepal, Ban-
gladesh, and China and populations in all four neighboring countries were growing
rapidly. All of these countries would be affected by the RLP. China was involved since
it was considering putting dams on the Tsangpo River in Tibet (China) and potentially
diverting water from it to the north (see Figure 1). Water diverted from the Tsangpo
River in Tibet would no longer be available to India as the Tsangpo turned into the
Brahmaputra River in eastern India. In turn, water diverted by either China or India
on the Tsangpo/Brahmaputra or Ganges Rivers would not be available to Bangladesh.
Nepal was involved since several of the large dams proposed in the RLP were to be
built in Nepal, whose leaders did not trust the motives of a powerful India. With a
combined population of more than 2 billion people and frequent shortages of water,
there was a lot at stake. Water was quickly becoming a scarce resource, potentially one
over which a country would go to war.

Water and Development

Despite great economic progress, India faced immense challenges of poverty and
underdevelopment. It was widely believed that poverty could be addressed by contin-
ued development of water resources. There was little doubt that extending irrigation
in the previous decades had resulted in substantial benefits. For example, one estimate
based on historical data indicated that the irrigation elasticity of poverty reduction in
the 1970s was almost 0.5.14 This meant that for every 10 percent increase in irrigated
land, the poverty rate in India fell by about 5 percent. However, Figure 7 shows that
the effectiveness of increasing irrigable land on poverty reduction had fallen consider-
ably by the 1990s. This led to a debate about whether a more effective mechanism for
increasing incomes was to increase productivity in existing agriculture practices rather
than simply constructing new water development schemes.

Water Crisis in India 31

 Figure 7: Percent Reduction in Poverty with 1 Percent Increase in Irrigated
Acreage

0.60%

0.50%

Percentage Reduction in
0.40%

Poverty
0.30%

0.20%

0.10%

0.00%
1973-77 1977–78
1973–77 1977-78 1983
1983 1987-88 1993–94 1999–2000
1987–88 1993-94 1999-2000

Source: Briscoe and Malik, 2006.

A different analysis showed that a nation’s access to clean water seemed to have little
relationship to the total per capita freshwater resource within a nation. Rather, access
to clean water seemed more closely linked to other measures of development such
as the Human Development Index.15 Some suggested that India’s largest challenge
was less an absolute scarcity of water, but rather was better described as a problem of
reliably delivering at least some clean water to where and when it was most needed.
Figure 8 shows the very small per capita water storage in the six river basins of India
compared to the Orange basin in Australia and the Colorado River basin the United
States. Low water storage capacity in India made it very difficult to save excess mon-
soonal rains for use during the dry season.

River-Linking Project (RLP)

The inter-basin transfer of water was an old idea brought up in the 1800s (Sir Arthur
Cotton), again in 1972 (Dr. K. L. Rao), and yet again in 1980 (Ministry of Water).
The last of these plans required thirty-two new dams, 12,468 kilometers of relatively
large canals, and many other smaller catchment structures. Kannan, then Secretary of
the Ministry of Water Resources, was an active participant in developing this plan. In
fact, it was during this period that he began to seriously question the very idea of such
a massive, centrally controlled project. The plan was never implemented, but it was
the basis for another plan of a similar scale eventually issued by the National Water
Development Agency (NCWIRD) in 1999, after seventeen years of study. This final
plan was referred to as the River-Linking Project (RLP). The NCWIRD16 had done
prefeasibility studies on several of the links between rivers and concluded that the
plans for the RLP were too ambitious for India. The RLP called for linking fourteen
Himalayan rivers in northern India and sixteen peninsular rivers in southern India as
shown in Figure 1.

32 Case Research Journal • Volume 34 • Issue 3 • Summer 2014

Figure 8: Storage Capacity in Selected River Basins of India, Australia, and
the United States

1000
900
Days of Average Flow

800
700
600
500
400
300
200
100
0

Source: Briscoe and Malik, 2006.

India was already facing drought conditions in 2001 before the monsoon rains
came with rains 30 percent below normal, resulting in serious water shortages. With a
sense of history about the water problems and motivated by the crisis, President Abdul
Kalam described the need for the RLP during his Independence Day speech on August
15, 2002. He was a respected engineer and strongly believed that the RLP would solve
many of India’s problems. Shortly thereafter, a writ was filed with the Supreme Court
of India. The issue at the heart of the case was the role of the government of India dur-
ing a period of time when the government had stores of food, yet people were starving
to death due to drought-related conditions. The court attempted to answer the follow-
ing questions:17
1. Does the right to life mean that people who are starving and too poor to buy
food have the right to free food from the state?
2. Does the right to life under Article 21 of the Constitution include the right
to food?
3. Does the right to food imply that the state has the duty to provide food to
people who cannot afford to buy food, especially during droughts?
The court responded as follows:
In our opinion, what is of utmost importance is to see that food is provided to the
aged, infirm, disabled, destitute women, destitute men who are in danger of starvation,
pregnant and lactating women and destitute children, especially in cases where they
or members of their family do not have sufficient funds to provide food for them. In
case of famine, there may be shortage of food, but here the situation is that amongst
plenty there is scarcity. Plenty of food is available, but distribution of the same amongst
the very poor and the destitute is scarce and non-existent leading to malnourishment,
starvation and other related problems.

Water Crisis in India 33

 The Supreme Court issued orders that called on government agencies to identify
the needy within their jurisdictions and to make sure that they received adequate food.
It further directed that the RLP project should be finished in ten years, an impossibly
ambitious timeline for such a massive project. Former Secretary of the Ministry of
Water Resources Kannan reacted to the Supreme Court edict:
An almost abandoned idea has been given fresh currency; a dubious idea has been given
legitimacy; and a wild-goose chase has been not merely sanctioned but mandated. We
talk about large projects as if they will solve all of our problems, but we rarely effectively
implement large projects. At least we have a chance of getting small projects done.
The Supreme Court justices later clarified that they had given a recommendation
to construct the RLP in ten years, not an order. However, the issue quickly became
part of the national agenda partly due to the drought. In response, the Prime Minister
of India appointed a task force in 2002 to study issues related to the interlinking of
rivers and asked Dinesh Shindey to chair the task force. The main duties of the task
force were to:
• provide guidance on norms of appraisal of individual projects with respect
to socioeconomic impacts, environmental impacts, economic impacts, and
preparation of resettlement plans;
• figure out how to bring about a speedy consensus among the states and pri-
oritize the different project components for preparation of detailed project
reports; and
• consider any relevant international dimensions.
Proponents of the RLP believed that its completion would result in an extra 1760
billion cubic meters of water availability per year, increase irrigated farmland by 34 mil-
lion hectares, reduce poverty among farmers, generate an additional 34,000 megawatts
of electrical power, reduce unemployment due to the creation of massive numbers of
construction jobs, and reduce flooding. About 10 percent of the additional power
generated would be used to continuously lift river water at strategic points as part of
the RLP. Still, the additional power generation would double the hydroelectric power
in India and reduce the demand for polluting coal-fired power plants.
Opponents believed that the RLP would be an environmental disaster, require the
resettlement of more than 500,000 people, destroy important wildlife habitat, result in
serious cost overruns, and generate conflict with neighboring Nepal and Bangladesh.
In fact, many debated whether such a massive project could ever be completed in India
due to corruption and cost overruns.
Briscoe and Malik reflected on the complexity of the RLP:18
The legitimate concerns are that each ‘link’ needs to be evaluated not just from an engi-
neering perspective but from economic, financial, environmental, social, and political
perspectives. The politics are important both domestically and internationally. Domes-
tically, because such links could only materialize if there are willing ‘givers’ (who would
need to be compensated) as well as ‘takers’ (who would need to compensate). And
internationally, because such inter-basin transfers would affect neighboring countries,
who would necessarily have to be consulted and have their concerns taken into account.
Shindey noted what the task force had done over the past few years:
Professionals I co-opted included experts in ecology, environment, technology, admin-
istration, banking, finance, water issues, law, journalism, and public policy. A group
of professional resource persons were also involved so as to guide the Task Force on

34 Case Research Journal • Volume 34 • Issue 3 • Summer 2014

 several key political and environmental issues. This group included former Ambas-
sadors, NGOs, environmentalists, scientists, technologists, sociologists, social activists,
foresters, wild life experts, etc.

Since water is such a burning issue in India, our task force took our charges very seri-
ously. For example, I appointed forty to fifty committees to look at social, political,
international and economic issues. We talked to most heads of the states and held 5000
meetings. We found that there was a disconnect between public opinion and the facts,
so we worked to raise the awareness of water issues.
According to Briscoe and Malik,19 the era of limitless expansion of groundwater
resources had to end and India had to rely more on surface water. In turn, this would
require a very large expenditure to rebuild some of the crumbling water infrastructure
already in place, which would put a financial strain on India. It would also require a
very different mindset and management style from the people who currently managed
water. These authors also discussed the difficulty of managing water in India:
In the eyes of many—including several of the very experienced Indians who wrote back-
ground papers for this report—the idea of such a modern, accountable ‘Indian water
system’ is a fantasy, given the dismal performance of the Indian state on water matters in
recent decades and the broader challenges of governance. Others point to ‘the hollowing
out of the Indian state . . . the growing middle-class exit from public services . . . and the
inability to grapple with the many long-term challenges facing the country.’

Alternative to RLP—The Decentralized Approach

There was no single alternative to the RLP. A wide variety of smaller measures had
been suggested by Kannan and others. These measures included several specific modest
increases in the supply of water as well as diverse projects and policies to decrease the
anticipated growth in demand for water. Most of those measures could be implemented
locally and/or regionally and in combination were referred to as the Decentralized
Approach. The effectiveness of the decentralized approach was also inherently uncer-
tain due to the wide range of suggested methods and the complexity of implementing
change.
While each component of the decentralized approach was limited in scale, the
effect of implementing several of the measures could be significant in addressing India’s
water future. Available studies had found that while successfully implemented local
projects did not always enjoy the cost advantages of larger scale projects, they were
more effective at reducing poverty.20 For example, one study suggested that agricultural
education that resulted in higher crop yields may be the most effective use of funds for
poverty reduction.21
Figure 9 summarizes the scale of various potential decentralized components
along with the best available cost estimates. It shows the quantity of water that experts
believed could be delivered each year for each alternative in billions of cubic meters per
year. It also shows the range of estimates for the unit cost to deliver a cubic meter of
water each year using each alternative. By way of comparison, government proponents
of the RLP estimated that delivering an extra 1760 billion cubic meters of water would
cost about $0.01 per cubic meter, although others suggested the annualized capital
costs could be much higher. Shindey estimated that operating and maintenance costs
would add at least $0.02 per cubic meter per year to the cost of the RLP.

Water Crisis in India 35

 Figure 9: Estimated Water Impact and Unit Cost Including Capital and Main-
tenance Costs for Selected Components of the Decentralized Approach
Amortized through 2050.

Measure Quantity Low Cost High Cost

Estimate Estimate
(billion cubic ($ per cubic ($ per cubic
meters) meter) meter)
Groundwater management and use. Monsoon recharge
for better utilization of shallow groundwater, and
targeted new deep groundwater use. Past experience 160 0.040 0.060
shows that sustainable management and use is difficult
to achieve.
Irrigation infrastructure: farm level improvements.
Improved irrigation technology and scheduling;
increased use of small local dams to hold monsoon 80 0.020 0.100
rains and irrigation canal rehabilitation to reduce water
losses.
Irrigation infrastructure: regional improvements. Reha-
bilitation of the distribution system, including control 150 0.050 0.080
dams and canal lining to achieve water savings and
more reliable water delivery.
Crop yield enhancement: improvements to general
farm practices, more and better targeted fertilizer use,
wider use of existing high yield seeds, integrated pest 360 0.030 0.080
management, and reductions in crop transportation
and storage losses.
Agricultural trade increases: the grain trade was largely
from the water poor states to the water rich states.
With “virtual” water trading water-poor states would 200 0.025 0.040
specialize in high quality, irrigated specialty crops, with
water-rich states specializing in water intensive crops
such as rice.
Municipal infrastructure improvements. The water
infrastructures of many cities were in deplorable condi- 100 0.035 0.120
tions due to lack of maintenance resulting in losses far
beyond the 10% to 20% that could be achieved.
Sea water desalination. With its huge coastline, India
had ample opportunity to desalinate ocean water. An
option that might eventually prove to be less costly 100 0.400 0.700
would be to mix brackish water with desalinated water
from the oceans.

Sources: International Food Policy Research Institute (2002), Asian Development Bank and Interna-
tional Water Management Institute (2004), and authors’ estimates.

Some believed that the decentralized measures shown in Figure 9 would be enough
to substantially alleviate India’s water needs for a few decades. Most of the savings
would be achieved only with advances made by individual farmers, but it was not clear
why farmers would choose to implement these sometimes costly measures. In many
instances, farmers had few long-term rights and little ability to control the deliveries
of canal waters. Wealthy farmers who were able to tap into good aquifers at subsidized
rates did not want change and there was no regulation limiting the amount of water
that could be pumped from an aquifer, resulting in excessive withdrawals of water
and falling water tables in many aquifers. The amount of money collected in payment

36 Case Research Journal • Volume 34 • Issue 3 • Summer 2014

for water was insufficient to pay for maintenance, infrastructure development, and
improvements in the management of water.22 What little the farmers paid was often
not based on the volume of water they used, but rather on their acreage or number of
canals. Furthermore, the current system called for the cost of some of these proposed
alternatives to be borne by the farmer, whereas the benefits would be apparent only in
time, perhaps several years. Given these factors, individual farmers had little incentive
to conserve water or undertake any investment that would improve efficiency.
The farming practices envisioned by the experts required something else not yet
common in the rural farming regions: educated farmers and government employees.
Roughly 85 percent of the Indian farmers had never reached high school and most
lived on less than $2 per day. Lacking education and opportunity, individual farmers
did whatever it took in the short term in order to survive from day to day.
It seemed that a great tragedy of the commons was slowly unfolding. The water lev-
els in aquifers were falling at the same time that water logging of other lands destroyed
productivity. The population was growing rapidly; the climate appeared to be chang-
ing; and the old water infrastructure was crumbling due to lack of maintenance.
Further, the per capita storage capacity for water in India remained very low, so little
of the heavy monsoon rain was available during subsequent dry periods. People act-
ing on behalf of their own short term needs were creating an eventual, larger problem
for the community. Politicians argued vehemently on both sides of the issue and the
government did not seem to have the foresight, the vision, the sense of purpose, or the
ability to analyze and deal with the issues.

Issues Before the Task Force

Shindey identified three types of risks affecting the decision to be made by the task
force:
The issues are very complicated. Both the RLP and the decentralized approach are huge
projects, each requiring decades to complete. Overall, there are three categories of risk
that we need to think about in terms of the RLP and also the decentralized approach.

1. Political risk: Getting the project approved and funded will be tremendously difficult.
Despite the growing water crisis, the political processes in India will make it difficult to
get all of the approvals needed and the huge costs make partial, or smaller scale imple-
mentation more likely.

2. Cost risk: India has a long history of cost overruns on big projects of all kinds. Corrup-
tion plays a part in driving costs higher as does the limited expertise of managers. There
is a big risk of significant cost overruns.

3. Engineering risk: Yes, our best engineers have studied these projects for years, but each
alternative is huge and complex and the climate may be changing. We simply may not
be able to deliver the amount of water predicted by the engineers for either project, no
matter how much effort and money we put into the project.
In terms of the political risk related to approval and funding at the scale that was
envisioned, Shindey decided to frame the range of possible outcomes by limiting his
thinking to the following:
1. A full implementation in which the full RLP or the full decentralized approach
was approved and funded;

Water Crisis in India 37

 2. A one-half implementation in which only half of the RLP or half of the decen-
tralized approach was approved and funded;
3. No implementation whatsoever.
He thought there was a slightly higher chance that the decentralized approach
would be approved and funded than the RLP. He also realized that the likelihood of
a full implementation of either project was modest at best, in the politically charged
democracy that was India. If full implementation of the decentralized approach was
not possible, he considered the possibility that only the most cost-effective of the
decentralized measures might be used.
Next, Shindey looked at cost risks. He knew that the potential for cost overruns
in India was very high for any large project, even when the project was managed as
carefully as possible. He felt he needed to be conservative and consider serious cost
overruns. So, he decided to frame the problem by considering a possible cost overrun
of 100 percent on the RLP resulting in twice the estimated cost and by considering the
high cost figures for the decentralized approach shown in Figure 9.
Shindey knew that engineering risk suggested that a project would not perform as
predicted and that it would fail to deliver the predicted amount of water. He consid-
ered this to be a significant risk given the size and scope of the two projects. If a project
did not deliver the estimated amount of water, he would need to carefully consider
what percent of the total water the project would actually deliver.

Social and Environmental Considerations

Shindey knew that many large scale, centralized water projects around the world had
failed to deliver economic benefits to the poorest households, but he hoped that either
RLP or the decentralized approach could lead India down a different track. The RLP
relied on mega-dams and huge canals which would displace hundreds of thousands
of people. Shindey knew that the poor benefitted the most from projects with strong
local components, but he worried that the approaches put forth by Kannan and his
allies relied on market mechanisms which benefited those who needed it least and did
little for the poor. Further, many of these components merely saved water and did
little to provide new supplies of water. Those that did provide new supplies of water
raised the issue of sustainability even though they relied largely on better management
of groundwater.
The RLP had its own sustainability problems since it needed multiple dams on
the sediment laden rivers flowing out of the Himalayas and the dams would lead to
foreseeable problems. First, the dams would rapidly lose their ability to store water
due to sediment, perhaps in as little as twenty-five years. Second, downstream areas in
India and neighboring Bangladesh relied on the river transported sediment to renew
the soil’s fertility and even to keep the land from sinking. If the sediment was removed
from the river at an upstream dam, crops could suffer and coastal areas could become
more vulnerable to typhoons even as sea levels were rising due to climate change.
These factors led Shindey to reflect on other environmental consequences. The RLP
would result in the destruction of, and fragment, thousands of hectares of important
wildlife habitat. It would forever change the ecology of many rivers, including that of
the Ganges. The water management improvements at the center of the decentralized
approach would likely harm local wildlife habitats dependent on water “wasted” by
adjacent farms. A reduction in the river flows would allow salt water to intrude into

38 Case Research Journal • Volume 34 • Issue 3 • Summer 2014

the coastal freshwater aquifers of India and potentially of Bangladesh. Finally, neither
project would do much to improve the appalling water quality of many of India’s rivers.

Preparing for the Meeting with Kannan

Shindey was concerned that India might enter a period of great water shortage without
being adequately prepared. He feared for what would happen to the 800 million peo-
ple living on less than $2 per day in the event of a worst-case, multiple year drought.
Since the domestic demand for water was only 5 percent of the total demand, the
government would likely continue to be able to alleviate the shortage of water for
domestic use by using water trains and trucks for thousands of villages, as it had in the
past. But Shindey wondered if the government could help millions of poor families
deal with the loss of income and the increased cost of food which were likely to occur
during a drought. He also wondered how many children and elderly would die in the
next serious drought. He summarized his thoughts before the meeting:
We have to consider the amount of water that a project will deliver—India needs to
better manage water resources and we need a lot more water by 2050 for the rapidly
growing population. But cost is also a very important factor—the costs of these big
water projects and related maintenance are huge. The annualized cost of building and
maintaining the RLP would require on the order of 20 percent of the income of all
families throughout India. And then there are considerations related to the environ-
ment and social issues. I’m worried that India has not done a good job resettling 40
million people who were displaced in the past so that large projects could be com-
pleted. Without careful planning, a large project could destroy a lot of habitat and
result in coastal erosion and heavy concentrations of salt in fields located in the lower
parts of basins just to mention a couple of issues. We have to think in terms of water
made available, costs, and environment/social issues. Anything less would be a failure.
And then there is the matter of what we can actually get done in India!
With a heavy heart, Shindey thought back to the grim reminders of past famines
that had caused millions of deaths and looked again at the World Bank forecast pre-
dicting another 500 million people this century. He was aware of Kannan’s misgivings
about a large, centralized project that involved an unprecedented commitment of the
nation’s resources. However, Shindey wondered how much less water the smaller proj-
ects favored by Kannan were likely to deliver and he worried about the total amount
of water needed by 2050. Still, Shindey and his task force had not yet made a final
decision about their recommendation and they valued and respected the opinion of
Kannan. Shindey wanted to make sure that Kannan’s views were openly discussed by
the task force during the meeting. Shortly after the meeting, Shindey and the task
force would report their recommendations and send them to the prime minister, presi-
dent, and Supreme Court.

Notes
1. The names of the individuals in the case have been disguised at the request of
the parties involved.
2. See the case Appendix for relevant historical information on India.

Water Crisis in India 39

 3. Shah, T., Accountable institutions, background paper for Briscoe and Malik’s
2006 report to the World Bank: India’s Water Economy, Bracing for a Turbulent
Future (2005).
4. Hofstede, G., Culture’s Consequences International Differences in Work-related
Values, W. J. Lonner, and J. W. Berry (Eds.), The Sage Series on Cross-cultural
Research and Methodology, Sage Publications (1984).
5. Vohra Committee Report, downloaded March 10, 2013, from Mahendra-
agarwalonline.20m.com/PR_VohraCommitteeReport.htm (1993)
6. Personal interview with farmer in India, January 9, 2012.
7. Taken from the following: Iyer, R. R., Water: Perspectives, Issues, Concerns, Sage
(2003). Black, M., and R. Talbot, Water: A Matter of Life and Health, Unicef.
Oxford University Press (2005). Vaidyanathan, A. India’s Water Resources: Con-
temporary Issues on Irrigation, Oxford Collected Essays, Oxford University Press
(2006).
8. A hectare is 2.47 acres.
9. Briscoe, J., and R. P. S. Malik, India’s Water Economy Bracing for a Turbulent
Future, The World Bank, Oxford University Press (2006).
10. National Commission for Integrated Water Resource Development (NCI-
WRD), Integrated Water Resource Development: A Plan for Action, Report of the
NCIWRD, Vol. I, Ministry of Water Resources, Government of India (1999).
11. Black, M. and R. Talbot, Water: A Matter of Life and Health, UNICEF, Oxford
University Press (2005).
12. Report to the World Bank, Power Subsidies, Public Policy for the Private Sector,
Note #244, (April 2002).
13. Briscoe, J., and R. P. S. Malik, India’s Water Economy Bracing for a Turbulent
Future, The World Bank, Oxford University Press (2006), page 11.
14. Briscoe, J., and R. P. S. Malik, India’s Water Economy Bracing for a Turbulent
Future, The World Bank, Oxford University Press (2006).
15. Lawrence, P., J. Meigh, and C. Sullivan, The Water Poverty Index: an Interna-
tional Comparison, Keele Economics Research Papers, (March, 2002).
16. National Commission for Integrated Water Resource Development (NCI-
WRD), Integrated Water Resource Development: A Plan for Action, Report of the
NCIWRD, Vol. I, Ministry of Water Resources, Government of India (1999).
17. Kent, G., The Human Right to Food in India, Case Study, University of Hawaii
(2002).
18. Briscoe, J., and R. P. S. Malik, India’s Water Economy Bracing for a Turbulent
Future, The World Bank, Oxford University Press (2006), page 33.
19. Briscoe, J., and R. P. S. Malik, India’s Water Economy Bracing for a Turbulent
Future, The World Bank, Oxford University Press (2006), page xxi of the execu-
tive summary.
20. Asian Development Bank and International Water Management Institute
(ADB/IWMI), Pro-poor Intervention Strategies in Irrigated Agriculture in Asia:
Issues, Lessons and Guidelines (2004).

40 Case Research Journal • Volume 34 • Issue 3 • Summer 2014

21. Young, R. A., Determining the Economic Value of Water: Concepts and Methods,
Routledge (2005).
22. Iyer, R. R., Water: Perspectives, Issues, Concerns, Sage (2003).

Water Crisis in India 41

 Appendix: Background on India
The East India Company was founded in Britain in 1600 to pursue commercial inter-
ests in Asia. It quickly focused attention on India where it built its first factory in 1612.
At first, the company mostly traded in silk, cotton, tea, and opium, but the role of the
company grew greatly during the next 145 years. Beginning after the battle of Plassey
in 1757, the East India Company essentially ruled India for 100 years. In 1857, the
British government took control of India from the East India Company and ruled the
country until August 15, 1947 when the Indian Independence Act partitioned the old
British Indian Empire into India and Pakistan. The basis for division was a religious
one—India was mostly Hindu and Pakistan was mostly Muslim. The breakup resulted
in the migration of about 12 million people as millions of Muslims moved into Paki-
stan and millions of Hindus migrated into India. There was a lot of violence during
this period and as many as one million people were killed.
In 1947, the landmass of India split Pakistan into an east and a west region. How-
ever, East and West Pakistan were geographically far apart and soon drifted apart
culturally and politically. In 1971, East Pakistan revolted and became a separate coun-
try called Bangladesh.
After gaining freedom from the British on August 15, 1947, India became the most
populous democracy in the world. Loosely modeled on the British system, it became
a parliamentary republic with six nationally recognized political parties and more than
forty regional parties. India was divided into twenty-eight states and seven smaller
Union Territories and was declared a constitutional republic on January 26, 1950.
The constitution of India was drafted under the leadership of Dr. B. R. “Babasaheb”
Ambedkar, a graduate of Columbia Law School in New York and the London School
of Economics. The constitution clearly delineated the roles of the judiciary and the leg-
islative. A Federal Government was formed in New Delhi while individual states were
granted autonomy and formed their own state governments. The President was seen
as the (Honorary) Head of State with all executive powers being vested in the Prime
Minister, who acted on behalf of the President. The state governments were headed by
Governors and Chief Ministers.
The judiciary of India had a central Supreme Court with each state having a High
Court of its own. The Supreme Court was designated as the highest court of appeal
in the country and the supreme guardian of the Constitution of India. The Supreme
Court had jurisdiction over all matters in which the individual states of India were in
dispute with the Central Government and/or in matters where one state was in dispute
with another. Most of the rivers in India flowed through several states, especially those
involved in the plan to link the rivers using canals (River Linking Plan or RLP). As
a result, the Supreme Court had jurisdiction over the RLP. The Supreme Court also
considered matters related to human rights, fundamental rights of the citizens, as well
as matters that the Government believed needed “immediate resolution” in the interest
of national welfare. This too, gave credence to the role of the Supreme Court in mat-
ters related to the RLP.

Geography
The Himalaya Mountains are 1500 miles long and are one of the highest mountain
ranges in the world. The Himalayas run along the northern edge of Pakistan, north
central India, through Nepal and through far northeast India. Water flowing south

42 Case Research Journal • Volume 34 • Issue 3 • Summer 2014

from the Himalayas flows into the Ganges River in north central India, a very densely
populated area with 300 million people. The Ganges River flows through northern
India along a fertile valley that roughly parallels the Himalayas, flowing east to Bangla-
desh. Much of the water flowing from the northern flanks of the Himalaya Mountains
ends up in the Tsangpo River of Tibet (China), flows east, and then follows a tortured,
winding course through far eastern India before finally flowing into Bangladesh. The
Ganges and Brahmaputra rivers join in Bangladesh and the water then forms a great
delta in the southern portion of Bangladesh before flowing into the ocean at the Bay
of Bengal. These two rivers account for more than 60 percent of the annual river flows
in India.
In 2006, the combined population of India, China, Pakistan, and Bangladesh
exceeded 2 billion people and made up over 40 percent of world population. Most
of the people in all four countries were poor farmers who eked out their livings on
tiny plots of land. These farmers were mired in debt and constantly battled droughts
and sometimes flooding. Many of the largest rivers in the area flowed unrestricted
through different countries. The combination of dense populations, extreme poverty,
and limited supply of water resulted in constant tensions between the four countries.
For example, any action to put a dam on one of the rivers that flowed across political
boundaries was immediately viewed with suspicion by any country down river.

Water
Although sacred to Hindus, the Ganges River was one of the most polluted rivers in
the world. The Hindus see the river as a goddess and believe that a bath in the river
results in the remission of sins. Believers travel long distances to place the ashes of
deceased relatives into the holy waters of the river—up to 40,000 partially and totally
cremated bodies are placed into the river each year at the holy city of Varanasi. More
than 1 billion liters of untreated sewage were also dumped into the Ganges and its
tributaries every day and up to 10 million people bathed in the river on religious
holidays. Industry also widely dumped pollutants into the river and its tributaries.
The fecal coliforms in parts of the Ganges River were 100,000 times the limit that was
considered safe for bathing, yet people still bathed in the river.
Several other rivers in India were nearly as polluted. Part of the problem was a lack
of appropriate treatment of sewage for India’s 1.1 billion people. The Central Pollu-
tion Control estimated that only 21 percent of India’s raw sewage was treated and that
more than 600 million Indians did not have access to toilets. Not only were other
rivers in India seriously polluted, many aquifers had been polluted by biological or
chemical pollutants including pesticides. Water quality problems created health haz-
ards for humans. UNICEF estimated that polluted water in India was a major cause of
diarrhea, which resulted in as many as one million deaths each year of mostly young
children.1
The prevailing winds reverse during the summer and bring summer monsoons up
from the south and drench much of north-east and east India. Eighty percent of the
total rainfall comes during the monsoons when some areas receive up to 400 inches of
rain in three or four months, causing swollen rivers to flood. For example, the Orissa
flood of 2001 in eastern India marooned 900,000 villages.2 Although flooding was
particularly common in the Ganges River basin and eastern India during the mon-
soons, other areas of India also flooded, as evidenced by the Maharashtra floods of
2005 near Mumbai on the west coast of India which resulted in the deaths of at least

Water Crisis in India 43

 5000 people. This flood resulted from thirty-nine inches of rain one day followed by
twenty-five inches of rain the next. Each year, floods in India killed an average of 1600
people and rendered another 33 million homeless. Yet roughly 75 percent of the water
from the monsoons rains flows unimpeded to the oceans and so is not available to the
farmers.
The very heavy monsoon rains cause erosion and fast runoff of water which together
contribute to the high sediment load of many of the affected rivers. For example, the
sediment load of the Brahmaputra River was the second highest among large rivers
in the world. Estimates varied, but the Brahmaputra River probably carried 1 billion
tons of sediment in a year with average monsoon rains. The Ganges River also had a
very high sediment load, although it carried slightly less sediment than the Brahma-
putra on average. Sediment was a problem since it could quickly fill the space behind
a dam. Once the space behind the dam had filled with sediment, it could no longer
store much water and its economic viability was significantly reduced. Throughout the
world, dams were often no longer viable after fifty to 100 years due to sediment fill,
structural problems, etc. Some wondered if dams on the Ganges and Brahmaputra
Rivers would be economically viable for even twenty-five years because of sediment.
Although flooding was a serious issue in India, droughts were a far more significant
problem. The country had a long history of famines caused by droughts, including
the Bengal famine of 1770 during which an estimated 10 million people died and the
famines of 1876–1877 and 1899 which together resulted in another 10 million dead.
More recently, droughts occurred in 1943, 1972, 1987, 1999–2000, and 2001–2003.
The drought of 2001–2003 was quite severe and resulted in 60 million unemployed
and 250 million without sufficient drinking water. Water in major reservoirs was
reduced to 36 percent below normal; 50 percent of the hand pumps in the state of
Rajasthan in western India went dry; and over 10,000 villages were being supplied
with drinking water by trains and trucks.3 This drought was a politically motivating
factor behind the announcement of the need for the massive River Linking Project
made by President Abdul Kalam in August 2002.
The occasional major drought caused widespread famine. However, the annual
drought caused a problem every year for many farmers in drier areas. Similar to farm-
ers everywhere, the farmers in India borrowed money to buy seed or to live until
harvest time. In years of good harvest, they were able to repay their debt and live for
another year. In dry years, crops wilted from lack of rain and farmers were left deeply
in debt, families went hungry and young children sometimes died. The droughts of
1999–2000 and 2001–2003 took a very heavy toll on many of these families as evi-
denced by government estimates of 100,000 suicides during that period. Some farmers
saw death as the only way out of the morass in which they found themselves. Water
was a scarce but precious resource.

Notes
1. Black, M. and R. Talbot, Water: A Matter of Life and Health, UNICEF, Oxford
University Press (2005).
2. Black, M. and R. Talbot, Water: A Matter of Life and Health, UNICEF, Oxford
University Press (2005).
3. Black, M. and R. Talbot, Water: A Matter of Life and Health, UNICEF, Oxford
University Press (2005).

44 Case Research Journal • Volume 34 • Issue 3 • Summer 2014