{"id":5323,"date":"2019-12-31T17:44:52","date_gmt":"2019-12-31T12:14:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/?p=5323"},"modified":"2019-12-31T17:44:52","modified_gmt":"2019-12-31T12:14:52","slug":"highlights-of-the-composite-water-management-index-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/highlights-of-the-composite-water-management-index-report\/","title":{"rendered":"Highlights of the Composite Water Management Index Report"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Relevance: Mains: G.S paper II: Governance<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Context:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>In 2020, according to the Niti Aayog, 21 Indian cities, including Delhi, Chennai and Bengaluru, will run out of groundwater.<br \/>\n\u2022 The Aayog\u2019s \u201cComposite Water Management Index\u201d (CWMI), released in June, notes that \u201cSeventy per cent of our water resources are contaminated\u201d.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Highlights of the CWMI report:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Several other reports, including the Central Water Commission\u2019s \u201cWater and Water Related Statistics 2019\u201d, have thrown light on the poor state of India\u2019s groundwater aquifers.<br \/>\n\u2022 The urgency of the Atal Bhujal Yojana, launched by the Union Jal Shakti Ministry last week, can, therefore, hardly be overstated.<br \/>\n\u2022 The groundwater revival scheme ticks quite a few right boxes.<br \/>\n\u2022 It seeks to strengthen the institutional framework of administering groundwater resources and aims to bring about behavioural changes at the community level for sustainable groundwater resource management.<br \/>\n\u2022 However, the Yojana that will be implemented in seven states \u2014 Gujarat, Haryana, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh \u2014 should only be seen as the first step towards restoring the health of the country\u2019s aquifers.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Background:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>India has had a Groundwater Management and Regulation Scheme since 2013. The Atal Bhujal Yojana will draw on some of the institutions created by this scheme, especially village-level water user associations (WUAs).<br \/>\n\u2022 The Jal Shakti Ministry will have its task cut out.<br \/>\n\u2022 The Niti Aayog\u2019s CWMI notes that though \u201c80 per cent states have a regulatory framework to establish such associations, progress on the ground is weak\u201d.<br \/>\n\u2022 Less than 50 per cent states involve the WUAs in critical groundwater management decisions like those pertaining to irrigation resources, according to the CWMI.<br \/>\n\u2022 The Atal Bhujal Yojana would do well to follow the Niti Aayog\u2019s recommendations for strengthening the financial state of the WUAs, including allowing these bodies to retain a significant portion of irrigation fees.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Significance of groundwater boosting:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Groundwater contributes to more than 60 per cent of the country\u2019s irrigation resources.<br \/>\n\u2022 Power consumers in the agriculture sector are billed at highly subsidised rates, which several studies have shown accounts for the over-extraction of groundwater.<br \/>\n\u2022 However, there is also a substantial body of work which shows that it is politically imprudent to install electricity meters on farmers\u2019 fields.<br \/>\n\u2022 The discourse on groundwater use has to move beyond this binary: Ways must be found to balance the demands of farmers with the<br \/>\nimperatives of reviving the country\u2019s aquifers.<br \/>\n\u2022 One solution \u2014 tried out in parts of Punjab \u2014 is to gradually reduce subsidies and offer cash compensation to farmers for every unit of electricity they save.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Conclusion:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The CWMI report talks of other solutions like persuading farmers to adopt more efficient technologies such as drip irrigation.<br \/>\n\u2022 By emphasising on local-level institutions like the WUAs, the Atal Bhujal Yojana has signaled the Jal Shakti ministry\u2019s inclination towards such persuasive solutions.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Relevance: Mains: G.S paper II: Governance Context: In 2020, according to the Niti Aayog, 21 Indian cities, including Delhi, Chennai<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3530,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[392],"class_list":["post-5323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general-studies-ii","tag-union-public-service-commission-upsc"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5323"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5323\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5324,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5323\/revisions\/5324"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}