Water Resources

This is Chapter 3 of Contemporary India – II: 11 pages (19–29). Its parts: water scarcity and the need for conservation and management (with boxes on the Atal Bhujal Yojana and the Jal Jeevan Mission); multi-purpose river projects and integrated water resources management (boxes on ancient hydraulic structures, what a dam is, Sardar Sarovar, PM Krishi Sinchayee Yojana and a Krishna–Godavari dispute, a Bhadu folk song and a full-page map of rivers and dams); and rainwater harvesting (tankas, Shillong, Tamil Nadu, Gendathur and Meghalaya's bamboo drip system). It has eight activities and an exercise of 3 MCQ-type questions, 3 short and 2 long questions. Every number is recomputed; our additions are marked †. The chapter is short and descriptive, so we use seven concept sections rather than pad it.

• Builds on jess101 (water as a renewable, flow resource; over-irrigation → salinity in Punjab) and jess102 (Chipko and the Beej Bachao Andolan — people-led conservation, the same spirit as traditional water harvesting); and on kegy103 (drainage: the rivers on which the dams stand) and kegy212 (the hydrological cycle).
• Goes further in legy204 (Water Resources, Class 12: India's 4,000 km³ of precipitation, 1,122 km³ utilisable, watershed management, the National Water Policy) and legy205 (hydel power); floods and droughts are in kegy106.
• Economics: jess201 uses groundwater over-use as its example of development that may not be sustainable. Leads into jess104 (irrigation and crops) and jess105 (hydel power among energy resources).
• UPSC, honestly: Prelims mostly tests dam–river–state matches (1982, 1999, 2005) — learn the map table below — and, now and then, what dams do to river life (river dolphins, 2014). Mains GS1/GS3 asks the very question this chapter opens with — why water-rich India faces scarcity (2015), freshwater access (2023), water stress (2019), urban water harvesting (2018), groundwater and food security in the Ganga valley (2024), groundwater depletion (2025) and storage and irrigation (2020). We link 11; policy-detail Prelims items (micro-irrigation, CGWA, watershed) sit on legy204.

• Water is renewable (hydrological cycle) but usable freshwater is small. Scarcity = over-exploitation, excessive use, unequal access + poor quality.
• Irrigated agriculture is the largest user; tube-wells → falling groundwater → threat to food security. Industries and cities add demand.
• JJM: piped water, 55 lpcd to every rural household. Atal Jal: 7 states, 80 districts, 229 blocks, 8,220 GPs; ≈ 37% of water-stressed blocks.
• Multi-purpose projects: Bhakra–Nangal (Satluj–Beas: power + irrigation), Hirakud (Mahanadi: flood control). Nehru: ‘temples of modern India’.
• Costs of big dams: poor sediment flow, reservoir silting, fragmented rivers, submergence, floods, induced quakes, disease, salinisation, displacement.
• Traditional harvesting: guls/kuls (W. Himalaya), tankas (Bikaner, Phalodi, Barmer; palar pani), khadins (Jaisalmer), johads, inundation channels (Bengal), bamboo drip (Meghalaya). Tamil Nadu first to make rooftop harvesting compulsory.

About three-fourths of the earth's surface is water, but only a small proportion of it is freshwater that can be used. Freshwater comes mainly from surface run-off and groundwater, which the hydrological cycle keeps renewing and recharging; since all water moves within that cycle, water is a renewable resource. So the book asks the puzzle the whole chapter answers: if water is abundant and renewable, why do countries and regions suffer from water scarcity, and why was it predicted that by 2025 nearly two billion people would live in absolute water scarcity?

We picture scarcity as the Rajasthan desert and women walking far with many matkas (earthen pots). Availability does vary over space and time with seasonal and annual rainfall, but NCERT's main point is that scarcity in most cases comes from over-exploitation, excessive use and unequal access to water among social groups. A region — many Indian cities are examples — may have ample water and still face scarcity. The drivers:

• A large and growing population needs more water for homes and, above all, to grow more food. Water is over-exploited to expand irrigated areas for dry-season agriculture; irrigated agriculture is the largest consumer of water. The book calls for drought-resistant crops and dry-farming techniques.
• Wells and tube-wells on farms raise output but can cause falling groundwater levels, hurting water availability and food security.
• Industrialisation after Independence: industries are heavy water users and also need power, much of it (the book says) from hydroelectricity.
• Urbanisation: dense cities and urban lifestyles add water and energy demand; many housing societies run their own groundwater pumps, depleting fragile resources in several cities.
• Quality: even where water is enough, it may be polluted by domestic and industrial wastes, chemicals, pesticides and fertilisers, making it hazardous.

Government responses named in the book: the Jal Jeevan Mission aims to give every rural household an assured supply of potable piped water at 55 litres per person per day, regularly and over the long term, by keeping tap connections working (source cited: Economic Survey 2020–21). The Atal Bhujal Yojana (Atal Jal) works in 8,220 water-stressed gram panchayats of 229 blocks/talukas in 80 districts of seven states — Gujarat, Haryana, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh — which hold about 37% of India's water-stressed (over-exploited, critical and semi-critical) blocks; a key aim is to shift communities from consumption to conservation (source cited: Ministry of Jal Shakti Annual Report 2022–23). The need of the hour, NCERT concludes, is to conserve and manage water to protect health, food security, livelihoods and ecosystems.

Archaeological and historical records show that India has built sophisticated hydraulic structures since ancient times — dams of stone rubble, reservoirs or lakes, embankments and canals for irrigation — and modern India continued the tradition by building dams in most river basins. NCERT's box, drawn from the Centre for Science and Environment's Dying Wisdom (1997):

What a dam is (NCERT's box): a barrier across flowing water that obstructs, directs or slows the flow, often creating a reservoir, lake or impoundment. Most dams have a spillway or weir over or through which water is meant to flow, intermittently or continuously. Dams are classified by structure and material — timber, embankment or masonry dams, with subtypes — by purpose, or by height: large and major dams, or low, medium-height and high dams.

Dams were traditionally built to impound rivers and rainwater for irrigation later. Today they also serve electricity generation, water supply for homes and industries, flood control, recreation, inland navigation and fish breeding — hence multi-purpose projects, in which the many uses of the stored water are integrated. NCERT's examples: in the Satluj–Beas basin, Bhakra–Nangal water is used for both hydel power and irrigation; in the Mahanadi basin, Hirakud integrates water conservation with flood control. Launched after Independence with an integrated water resources management approach, these projects were seen as the vehicle of development; Jawaharlal Nehru called dams the ‘temples of modern India’ because they would join agricultural and village development with rapid industrialisation and urban growth.

Sardar Sarovar (NCERT's box, source: Sardar Sarovar Narmada Nigam Ltd.): built on the Narmada in Gujarat, one of India's largest water-resource projects, covering four states — Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Rajasthan — and meant for drought-prone and desert areas. It is to irrigate 18.45 lakh ha in 3,112 villages of 15 districts of Gujarat, 2,46,000 ha in the desert districts of Barmer and Jalore (Rajasthan) and 37,500 ha in the tribal hilly tract of Maharashtra by lift. About 75% of the Gujarat command and all of the Rajasthan command are drought-prone.

In recent years multi-purpose projects and large dams have faced scrutiny and opposition. NCERT lists the reasons: regulating and damming rivers changes their natural flow, causing poor sediment flow and excessive sedimentation at the reservoir bottom, so stream beds become rockier and aquatic habitats poorer; dams fragment rivers, so aquatic fauna cannot migrate, especially to spawn; reservoirs on floodplains submerge vegetation and soil, which decompose. Ironically, dams built to control floods have triggered floods through sedimentation, and big dams have mostly failed to control floods in times of excessive rain — floods that destroy life and property and erode soil. Floodplains lose silt, a natural fertiliser, adding to land degradation. Multi-purpose projects have also been linked to induced earthquakes, water-borne diseases and pests, and pollution from excessive water use. Irrigation has shifted cropping to water-intensive commercial crops, with consequences such as salinisation of soil. The exercise adds large-scale displacement and loss of livelihood.

Irrigation efficiency: the Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana aims to ensure some means of protective irrigation for all farms: physical access to water on the farm and more cultivable area under assured irrigation (har khet ko pani), better on-farm water-use efficiency, water-saving technologies such as ‘per drop more crop’, and sustainable water conservation.

Given the disadvantages of and rising resistance to multi-purpose projects, many saw water harvesting as a viable alternative, both socio-economically and environmentally. Ancient India had an extraordinary tradition of it: people knew their rainfall regimes and soil types and harvested rainwater, groundwater, river water and flood water to suit local ecology and needs.

Tankas of the Thar. In the semi-arid and arid areas of Rajasthan, particularly Bikaner, Phalodi and Barmer, almost every house traditionally had an underground tanka for drinking water, as large as a big room — one household in Phalodi had one 6.1 m deep, 4.27 m long and 2.44 m wide. Tankas were part of a well-developed rooftop system: rain on the sloping roofs ran down a pipe into the tanka; the first spell of rain was not collected, since it cleaned the roofs and pipes. Stored water lasted until the next rain — a reliable source in summer when everything else dried up. Rainwater, palar pani, is considered the purest natural water. Many houses built underground rooms beside the tanka, kept cool by it. Today, in western Rajasthan, the practice is declining because the perennial Indira Gandhi Canal supplies plenty of water, though some houses keep tankas because they dislike the taste of tap water.

In many rural and urban areas rooftop rainwater harvesting is being successfully adapted. NCERT's examples:

• Recharge (Fig. 3.3): roof water is collected by a PVC pipe, filtered through sand and bricks, piped underground to a sump for immediate use; the excess goes to a well — through a hand pump or an abandoned dug well — which recharges the groundwater, to be drawn later.
• Shillong, Meghalaya: rooftop harvesting is the most common practice — though Cherrapunjee and Mawsynram, about 55 km away, get the world's highest rainfall, the state capital faces acute water shortage. Nearly every household has a rooftop system, which meets about 15–25% of its total water needs.
• Tamil Nadu: the first state to make rooftop rainwater harvesting structures compulsory for all houses, with legal provisions to punish defaulters.
• Gendathur, a remote village in Mysuru, Karnataka: nearly 200 households harvest rooftop rain, earning the village the distinction of being ‘rich in rainwater’. With 1,000 mm of rain a year, 80% collection efficiency and about 10 fillings, each house can collect about 50,000 litres a year.
• Bamboo drip irrigation, Meghalaya (Fig. 3.7): a 200-year-old system; 18–20 litres of stream or spring water enters the bamboo pipes, travels hundreds of metres by gravity, and is reduced to 20–80 drops per minute at the plant.

Three questions in the text and eight activities (including the flood page). Outlines below; disputes are given as facts only.

Three multiple-choice-style questions, three 30-word and two 120-word questions. Try first, then open.

Numbers

One-liners

• Water is renewable because the hydrological cycle keeps renewing it.
• Most scarcity comes from over-use, unequal access and pollution, not just low rain.
• Irrigated agriculture is the largest user of water.
• A multi-purpose project integrates many uses of one reservoir.
• Dams store water but trap silt, fragment rivers and drown land.
• Traditional harvesting fits local rain and soil.
• The tanka stores rooftop rain; the first shower is let out.
• Shillong shows that even the wettest region needs storage.
• Bamboo drip is gravity-fed drip irrigation, two centuries old.

Traps to avoid

• Bhakra–Nangal is on the Satluj, Hirakud on the Mahanadi, Gandhi Sagar on the Chambal.
• Displacement is an argument against multi-purpose projects, not for them.
• Rooftop harvesting is declining in western Rajasthan because of the Indira Gandhi Canal.
• Kuls = western Himalayas; khadins = Jaisalmer; inundation channels = Bengal; bamboo drip = Meghalaya.
• Tamil Nadu was the first state to make rooftop harvesting compulsory.
• Gendathur: 200 × 50,000 = 1 crore litres; the printed 1,00,000 is a slip.
• The ‘Krishna–Godavari’ box is about Koyna, a Krishna tributary.
• A dam is the barrier; the reservoir is the lake behind it.
• Hydro is one source of industrial power; coal-based thermal is the largest.

Prelims — what UPSC asks

• From this chapter: dam–river matches — Bhakra/Hirakud/Kosi (1982), Mettur/Alamatti/Sardar Sarovar/Gandhi Sagar (1999), Gandhi Sagar and the Chambal project (2005); dams and river dolphins (2014). Learn the 20-dam table by river system, then add other well-known dams (Alamatti, Tehri, Idukki, Ukai) from legy205 and kegy103.
• Scheme facts change: check JJM coverage, Atal Jal's period and CGWB's latest groundwater assessment close to the exam; quote each with its year.

Mains — where it appears and how to answer

• GS1: water scarcity in a water-rich country (2015), water harvesting in cities (2018), water stress (2019), the freshwater crisis (2023), groundwater and food security in the Ganga valley (2024). GS3: storage and irrigation (2020), groundwater depletion (2025). Use the chapter's causes, its traditional and modern examples, and schemes with years.
• For dams and river links, set out the development and the displacement/ecology positions side by side with their authors; give tribunals and court orders as dated facts, and do not take a side on any inter-state dispute.

Tap an option. NCERT's own exercise questions come first; the rest test the figures and common confusions.

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