The Hindu Business Line : Water situation: Is Kerala in dire straits?

ON APRIL 7, the Kerala High Court allowed the cola multinational to draw 5 lakh litres of water each day from its 34-acre land in Plachimada in Kerala's Palakkad district and home to one of the company's biggest bottling plants. This area is also home to thousands of Dalits and Adivasis who depend on the wells for their water requirements.

More than anything else, l'affaire Plachimada raises larger questions about the "state of water availability" in India, in general, and Kerala, in particular.

The per capita availability of water in India was 5,177 cubic metres in 1951 but dropped 29 per cent to 1,500 cubic metres by 2003. By 2025 the availability will only be 1,340 cubic metres, which is a further decrease by 11 per cent. This means that in the past half a century the per capita water availability has been decreasing at 0.6 per cent per annum. This is alarming. The Washington-based International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) projects that India's water demand would rise by 50 per cent in the next 20 years. By 2025, 11 river basins, including that of the Ganga, will be water deficient threatening 900 million lives. And by 2050 India's population will be 1,650 million. And where would we go for the all the water that we would need if we deplete it the way we do now?

We must remember that the total fresh water available for human consumption is just about 0.2 per cent and every litre of water that we save is a litre conserved. No doubt there is ample water in the seas. But desalinisation plants are so energy-intensive that only perhaps the oil rich countries can use this technology. Rainwater harvesting is still fanciful.

The impact of loss of water on the farm front can be devastating. Palakkad district was known as the "rice bowl" of Kerala. But the rice farmers of Palakkad are abandoning their crops for various reasons, but mainly scarce water, high cost of inputs and labour, and the "high input technology" of the Green Revolution no more cost effective. Little wonder that Kerala now produces only about 25 per cent of its paddy requirement and imports the rest from neighbouring States.

It is in this context that the High Court judgement should be seen. The judgement was based on the recommendations of an `expert' committee, which said that even without drawing of water, wells in the district dry up in summer. Sure, wells 20-30-feet deep dry up in summer, even in places where the water-table is high. But this is usually the surface water. However, in the case of Plachimada, we are talking about water being pumped up from 200-300 feet in a water-scarce area. A recent investigation in Kerala showed that the water-table is receding at the rate of one metre a year. This is catastrophic for a State that was once known as the "water reservoir" of India.

Can Kerala take the exploitation of its vital resource even as the State Government says that it must "stand by its commitment"? Does India have a law to protect its precious water sources? Can any one at will exploit it remorselessly? To whom does groundwater belong?

Quite rightly, and legally, what a company does on its plot is its business. Just as an ordinary person can draw water from his plot of land without the permission of the Panchayat or the Government, so can the company. But, then, the difference is in the quantity extracted and if it will affect the others in the vicinity who depend on groundwater for their sustenance.

These vital questions that involve issues of ethics need answers. In this context, one may cite the standard US rule: "Whatever be the international commitments or agreements signed by America, if any agreement conflicts with the interests of the American people, the American law will prevail; the American law will subdue that commitment". Can we take a leaf out of this rule?

(The author, a former National Science Foundation Professor, Royal Society, Belgium, can be contacted at nair_kpp @yahoo.com)

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