BIG DRINKERS

India’s industrial growth may be at risk due to the paucity of a critical resource: water. To be sure, the country is not water-rich — only 4 per cent of the globe’s water resources are to be found in India, while it supports 18 per cent of the world’s population. Still, the projected demand, coupled with falling groundwater levels, is sending alarm bells ringing.

Consider this: India had around 6,000 cubic metres (m3) of water per capita a year in 1947. The level shrank to 1,588 m3 in 2010. Indeed, demand for water is expected to outstrip supply by as much as 50 per cent by 2030, says a report by the 2030 Water Resources Group.

Besides personal use, agriculture, is the biggest water user, with an 80 per cent share in consumption. Industrial use is a mere 7-8 per cent. But the concern is that industrial water consumption is expected to quadruple between 2000 and 2050. By 2050, it will reach 18 per cent of total annual consumption, according to data from HSBC Holdings.

Water literally evaporates in thermal power plants, which account for around 87 per cent of total industrial water utilisation. To generate 1 MW of power, you require 5-7 m3 an hour in older plants and 3.5-4 m3 of water an hour in newer units, according to data from Greenpeace. So setting up a 1,000-MW plant is equivalent to irrigating 7,000-10,000 hectares of land. As electricity demand in the country goes up to power industrial growth, lack of water will certainly cripple generation.

For instance, the Parli thermal power plant in Maharashtra, with an installed capacity of 1,130 MW, has been shut since February 2013 due to water-supply constraints. A total of 6 GW of coal-based generation capacity faced closure in 2011 and 1.5 GW in 2012.

The steel industry, which is key to growth in the infrastructure and automobile sectors, is also highly water intensive. For instance, hot rolling operations and coke oven gas treatment independently use 27,000-34,000 litres of water per tonne of finished product. According to the National Steel Policy, 2012, consumption of water by the steel industry is estimated to go up from 360 million m3 in 2016-17 to around 650 million m3 in 2025-26, in the base case scenario.

In most industries, water is used to cool machinery and is part of a closed loop system, where it is recycled. But in chemical, leather, paper and textile industries, water is also used as part of the manufacturing process and consumed. Electronic chip manufacturing also requires large quantities of clean water. This has deterred Bangalore, home to over 85 chip designing companies and over 330 R&D companies focussed on electronics, from bidding for a semiconductor fabrication unit.

Not just quantity, the quality of water is also affecting industries. Pollution from untreated effluents is affecting industries such as pharma and food processing, which require good quality water. Companies are adding higher levels of water filtration technology to meet quality goals.

The industry, of course, has to take its share of blame when it comes to water-related issues. Data show that around 6.2 billion litres of untreated industrial waste-water is generated every day. In Coimbatore, untreated water from textile units released in the Noyyal river caused widespread damage, affecting some 120,000 people in 95 villages, who were dependent on agriculture. Coconut and sugarcane fields, affecting 75,000 acres, were laid bare as the toxin levels in the water rose between 5,500 and 7,000 ppm (parts per million). The Madras High Court ordered Zero Liquid Discharge from all dyeing and bleaching units in the Tirupur knitwear cluster in 2011, along the river.

Likewise, the mining industries in States such as Odisha, Bihar and, recently, in Karnataka have led to high levels of arsenic in nearby areas. Not just the big industries, but the nearly three million small-scale and cottage industrial units also add to the pollution.

Varun Sridharan, Director, Greenvironment Innovation and Marketing, which provides engineering solutions for waste-water treatment, says pickle-making units can lead to an increase in total dissolved solids (TDS) in water in just three to six months.

That said, while there are some regulatory norms for industries, there is none for the agricultural sector or for municipal waste. Pesticide use, which leaves residue in drinking water, is increasing in the country.

The cotton crop needs a substantially high amount of chemical pesticide and consumes 44.5 per cent of the total pesticides used in the country. Indeed, the pesticide industry’s growth is pegged at 12-13 per cent a year, according to a report by Tata Strategic Management Group. The overall pesticide usage level of 0.60 kg per hectare is still low, compared to the world average of 3 kg per hectare. But the lack of regulation is still a cause for concern.

And far from being the role model, local municipalities and corporations throw in their share of waste. The water quality monitoring results from the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) from 1995 to 2011 show that organic and bacterial contamination is ‘critical’, mainly due to the “discharge of domestic waste-water, mostly in untreated form, from the urban centres of the country”. The CPCB estimates that only 22 per cent of the waste-water from class I cities and 9 per cent from class II cities is being collected and treated, while the rest is let off without any treatment.

If treating water seems expensive, inadequate sanitation can be costlier. The economic losses due to manpower and productivity loss and healthcare spends are large — about 6.4 per cent of the GDP in 2006 — according to a World Bank report.

Mihir Shah of the Planning Commission notes that “it’s extremely important to reduce the water footprint of Indian industry, both in terms of fresh water used, and also polluted waste-water released untreated into the environment”.

Industry has been doing its bit — by improving technology to reduce water use. Tata Steel, for example, reported an 18 per cent decrease in water consumption over a 10-year span from 7.1 m3/tcs in 2002-03 to 5.8 m3/tcs in 2011-12. Another way is to recycle the raw material to reduce water use. In the textile industry, where it takes over 20,000 litres of water to produce 1 kg of cotton, recycling a pair of jeans can cut water usage by half.

While the problem may be talked about, there is really no ‘authority’ to regulate water use. Only a few, such as the Maharashtra Water Resources Regulatory Authority, established in 2005 to regulate and enforce water entitlements across domestic, industrial and agricultural users, exist currently.

Also, the lack of a standardised system for corporate water disclosure has created serious gaps and inadequacies in the availability, scope, coverage and quality of water data collected. Non-profit organisation CDP, along with KPMG, stressed the need for corporate disclosures on water usage in its March 2014 report.

The draft National Water Framework Bill, 2013, states that industries that consume more than one million m3 of water a year should file annual ‘water returns’ containing information such as water utilisation per unit of produce, effluent discharge details, rainwater harvested, water reuse details and fresh water consumption. Better monitoring of water data and enforcement of usage limits will certainly help understand the problem and put the resource to its best use.

But for now, there is unfortunately no real push to take a serious look at solutions or invest in savings.

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