By Mrs. Shweta Tyagi
Rapid pace of industrialization is exerting extra pressure on already scarce and fast depleting water resources. The industrial sector is expected to replace agriculture sector, which has traditionally been the biggest user of water. However, the growth of industry is 
equally essential to maintain the momentum in economic growth. Synergy between industry and water is necessary to ensure appropriate water-use efficiency measures and adoption of new technological and innovative techniques to facilitate water conservation and recycling the industrial waste water for re-use. Government of India in its National Water Mission (NWM) under the National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC, 2008) has proposed to develop a framework for optimizing water use efficiency by 20 per cent through regulatory mechanism with differential entitlements and pricing. This requires the industry sector optimize their water use practices, ensuring efficient water use, water conservation, recycle and reuse.
In order to attract the attention of the industries to ensure water use efficiency in industrial sector and emphasize on the urgency for adopting technological and innovative measures for recycling industrial waste water for reuse, India Water Foundation (IWF), a New Delhi-based non-profit civil society, in collaboration of Rajasthan Industrial Development and Investment Corporation (RIICO) organized an international conference on water use efficiency in industrial sector on 9 November 2011 at Rajputana Sheraton Hotel Jaipur, Rajasthan.
The Union Minister of Parliamentary Affairs and Water Resources, Government of India, Sh Pawan K. Bansal inaugurated the conference and Sh Rajendra Pareek, Minister of Water Resources and Industry, Government of Rajasthan, presided over the inaugural session. The conference saw the participation of the who’s who of the decision makers from the government, public and private Sectors. Some of those who were there at the conference included the Central Minister for Parliamentary Affairs and Water Resource, Shri Pawan Bansal, Shri. Rajendra Pareek, Minister of Water Resource & Industries, Rajasthan, Ranjan Chatterjee, Sr. Advisor, E&F, Planning Commission of India, Mr. Ajit Tyagi, DG, IMD, Ministry of Earth Sciences, GOI, Mr. Sameer Vyas, MD,IL&FS Water, etc. representative of JICA-India, AFPRO, UNIDO, and scenario officials of Rajasthan Government. Many water experts made their presentations at the technical sessions.
The entire schedule of the conference was divided into Three Technical Sessions, apart from the Inaugural Session and the Concluding Session. The deliberations were to veer around following themes of Water Conservation; Water and Climate Change; Industrial Water Laws and Regulations; and Institutional Challenges. The focus areas that receive added emphasis inter alia included:
- Forge collaboration and synergy between industry & water sectors, with both Indian and foreign agencies for technological alliance and partnerships.
- To analyze obstacles in fostering public-private partnership;
- To seek strengthen partnership in Industry in Rajasthan;
- Share best practices in technology/innovations in water-use efficiency in industry;
- Work-out policy recommendations for the state and central governments.
In his inaugural address, Union Water Resource Minister Pawan Bansal said that industries have to share responsibility towards judicious usage of water and its conservation. While suggesting reducing usage of water and water harvesting, he said: “Industry has to target towards being water positive and not merely neutralising the water intake.” While announcing that New Water Policy and Industrial Water Policy were on the anvil, Sh. Bansal also stated that establishment of National Water Hub was also under active consideration of the Government. The Rajasthan Water Resources and Industry Minister Rajendra Pareek said, “As a responsible citizen, it is our duty to protect environment and water resources.”
In his address to the conference, Ranjan Chatterjee, senior advisor (E&F), Planning Commission, Government of India, said: “The general tendency among people is to take care of the immediate and not think about the future. But we need to be careful of what we leave behind for the children tomorrow. We should carry out campaigns to bring higher degree of consciousness towards water. The focus would be on technology to manage water resources, promote the use of recycled water among industries.”
Stating that 80% of fresh water was used for irrigation and urban use, but lack of consciousness to re-cycle it has led to dwindling of the resource, Sh. Chatterjee said: “The basic function of the government is to provide clean water but the situation is pathetic in rural India. This is leading to large scale migration to the cities which are getting overcrowded.”
He further emphasized that in the industrial sector too, the medium and small-scale industries get away with not using water treatment plants, while the heavy industries use such facilities only on a limited scale. Therefore, water auditing becomes an inescapable necessity that would go a long way in checking wastage of water. Water and power need to be taxed to avoid misuse. He further stated, “In the 12th Five-Year-Plan, the government is working on an action plan to save the rivers of this country, but that needs political will and money. In the future, one would have to use ‘green technology’ to mitigate climate change.”
In their presentation on “Industrial Water Management Options and Equipment”, M.K. Sharma et al of National Institute of Hydrology, Roorkee, lamented that fresh water resources all over the world are threatened not only by over exploitation and poor management but also by ecological degradation. Water pollution can be attributed to discharge of untreated waste, dumping of industrial effluents and runoff from agricultural fields, industrial growth, urbanization and increasing use of synthetic organic substances. They emphasized that such a scenario requires efficient and effective treatment of water from such sources at reasonable cost before use to avoid instances of water -borne diseases and to provide safe drinking water to the society. The water is being used as multipurpose resource in India.
Dr S.K. Sharma, Principal Advisor, India Water Foundation, in his presentation on “Industrial Water Auditing and Conservation Management”, said that water conservation is an action to reducing the use of water and recycling of waste-water for various purposes. The goal of water conservation initiative includes sustainability in as much as the withdrawal of fresh water must not exceed its natural replacement rate. Besides, the water conservation goals also include energy and habitat conservation. A fundamental conservation goal hence is universal water metering and water auditing. He further added that industries water saving devices & technology include cooling tower conductivity controllers, waste water reuse or recycling systems, rain water harvesting and recharging.
Dr Dinesh Kumar Tyagi, IAS (Retd.), and presently CEO of Bharat Technical Solutions, in his presentation on “ ICT in Sustainable Water Management – Can it play an effective role”, stated that ICT in water, on the face of it may not appear to be relevant but keeping in view the need for effectively enhancing and improving the efficiency of the various interventions at the state and the community level in such a large and diverse country, can enable devising the framework to meet the expectation of various stakeholders. ICT can help in collating the available data from the field and creating a decision support system based on this information. ICT can help in devising the location specific, sector specific models for formulating the action plan. He further added that once the various schemes and plan are formulated, ICT can provide the desired support for getting the inputs from communities and various other civil society groups to create the ownership of the schemes and program formulated. ICT can be a very effective tool for advocacy which has to be integral to plan or scheme designed in the water sector. ICT can help in effective and efficient management of this vital resource of great national importance.
Dr Arjit Dey, Scientist with Central Ground Water Board and presently Officer on Special Duty to the Hon’ble Union Minister of State for Water Resources, Government of India, in his presentation on “Sustainable Water Resources Management in Mining: Challenges and Opportunities”, laments that it is only in the last 15 years that mining companies have begun to realize the consideration of water as an “environmental good”, which has to be shared with other users, while ensuring the maintenance of healthy ecosystems. He further observed that this new understanding implies strong paradigm shifts in the way the industry conceptualize water management. Sustainable water management and access – by industries, communities and local governments – therefore requires raising the awareness and building the capacity to design and implement development plans that protect this critical resources.
Professor R.S. Antil of Department of Soil Science, CCS Haryana Agriculture University of Hissar, in His presentation on “Problems and Prospects of Utilization of Sewage and Industrial Wastewaters in Agriculture”, in his presentation explained about the sewage and industrial wastewater giving its composition, effect on plants and soil. He also spoke about various ways to mitigate problems associated with the sewage and industrial wastewater:
- To exploit the sewage waters as a potential source of irrigation and maintain environment, the sewage waters must be diluted with either canal or groundwater to avoid excessive accumulation of soluble salts in the soils.
- Entry of heavy metals into food chain can be reduced by adopting soil and crop management practices, which immobilize these heavy metals and reduce their uptake by plants
- Heavy phosphate application and also the application of kaolin/zeolite to soils can reduce the availability of heavy metals
- Application of organic manures can mitigate the adverse effect of the toxic metals on crops.
- Raising hyper accumulator plants in soils contaminated by toxic metals will prevent their entry into food chain
- Stricter Government regulation and legal mechanism to monitor sewage water and industrial waste water.
Mr. Pradip Kumar Principal Specialist-Cum-Coordinator, AFPRO, in his presentation on “Community initiative for water conservation and management to combat the adverse impact of climate change”, emphasized on the need to increase inland and ground water, improve soil moisture, so agriculture production can be improved, and ecological balanced can be restored. The study based on 3 adjoining villages (Sarai, Kota & Gangani ) of Mewat area in Haryana is claimed to be a model of water conservation, contributed to a multi stakeholder partnership in water conservation and management. The project area is occupied by ridges of rocks of Aravali mountain range having deposits of good quality of green, black and brown slate. There is diversity in land use land cover owning to variety in soils, ground water availability and irrigation facility. The climate is hot and semi- arid with an annual rainfall of about 450mm.
According to Pradip Kumar, the major components of the projects are drainage line treatment, rain water harvesting, ground water recharge, promotion of agricultural based living hood. The two level of the result expected from the projects are the short term results based on the improvement in terms of water management and agricultural practices at local level and increase in soil moisture and recharge the ground water levels. The long term impact of the projects expects an improvement in living hood projects and increase in surface and ground water level with an increase in overall crop productivity and conservation of soil and water resource in coming future.
Mahendra Mehta and Shriniwas Mudrakartha in their jointly authored presentation on “Policy Issues & Areas for Industrial Water Management Rajasthan”, present some vital statistics and facts about Rajasthan and water availability there. Rajasthan is the largest state occupying 10.4% of land area but with 1.16% surface water of total resource in country. It receives 17.89 BCM of water through inter-state agreements, in addition to utilizable 11.84 BCM. The groundwater is highly over exploited and the water demand is quite high in state. The state is the leading producer of cement. It is rich in mineral production of Zinc, Lead, lignite and building stones as well as fulfills the entire production of calcite and natural gypsum of the country’s demand. Rajasthan is major producer of asbestos, copper concentrate, Rock phosphate etc.
It is further observed from this presentation that Rajasthan is a pioneering state that has adopted Integrated Water Resource Management in 11 districts. It is also conducting benchmark studies in water use. It was the first State to release Water Policies. According to Rajasthan State Water Policy Water Allocation Priorities are human drinking water, livestock, other domestic, commercial and municipal water use, agriculture, power generation, environmental and ecological, industrial , non-consumptive uses – tourism and cultural. The authors also highlighted some key issues of zoning based on water availability and type of industries (polluting and non polluting industries), water-intensive industries, Dyeing and printing industries etc. Appropriate technology has to be used for industry effluents. Zero discharge concepts imply any harmful or toxic material must not be discharged in the environment and total rainwater harvesting help in increase in Ground water level.
In his presentation on “Successful Water Efficiency Efforts, Role and Responsibility”, Vijay Penagonda of Green Systems, New Delhi, compares benefits and disadvantages of currently adopted rainwater harvesting (RWH) and GW recharge structures with an innovative and advanced Modular Technology. Working of the modular system is presented along with test results and data from projects completed in India, Australia, and Japan. Based on several years of research, test results, and performances of currently installed structures, modular technology is recommended to replace conventional methods of RWH and GW recharge in water stressed regions and industrial hubs.
The presentation by Dr M.M. Kimothi, Director of Dehradun-based Uttarakhand Space Application Centre, deals with the theme of “Sustainable Management of Water Resources of the State of Uttarakhand.” While referring to the fragile Himalayan ecosystem, with its snow-clad mountains, rich biodiversity and natural resources has been the cradle of human civilization for times unknown, laments that the State of Uttarakhand, with its major portion being covered by the rugged topography of the Central Himalayas stands highly susceptible to all the adverse impacts of climate change. While alluding to adverse impact of climate change on the glacier system, which is a source of several important perennial rivers, the author says that these He emphasizes on the need for carrying out proper and focused studies for monitoring of the impact of climate change on our natural resources and people livelihoods especially in the mountain ecosystem. Moreover, Uttarakhand is the location of many important pilgrimage places. Seasonal tourism adds pollution to rivers. In addition to sewage, nonpoint source pollution such agricultural runoff is a significant source of chemical wastes dumped by industries.
In their jointly authored presentation on “Water Availability in Western Rajasthan and Its Management”, R.K. Goyal and M.M. Roy of the Jodhpur-based Central Arid Zone Research Institute, while asserting that of the total water use about 85% of water is used for irrigation and remaining 15% is used for drinking, industrial and other purposes, also lament that with increasing demand for food and fodder to feed the ever growing population, there will be more stress on the share of water available to the industries. While industrial growth is must for the overall development of economy, availability of water will be a serious challenge. Studies conducted at this institute indicated that as small as 1oC rise in temperature leads to an additional water demand of 44 mm on account of higher evpotranspiration. In the coming years any increase in crop water requirement even to maintain the present level of production will further reduce the availability of water for other sectors including industries.
While emphasizing that planning for water development the quantity as well as quality is equally important where the natural input to the system from rainfall is small, the authors contend that improving conveyance/irrigation efficiency and recycling of water from sewage effluents or irrigation return flow is one way of obtaining the maximum benefit in regard to limited water quantity. This paper presents a detailed quantification of additional water demand for the 12 districts of western Rajasthan in the global warming scenario and suggests strategies for efficient utilization of water in agriculture.
Shawahiq Siddiqui, Advocate, Supreme Court of India, in his presentation on “Locating ‘Water Use Efficiency’ in the Indian National Legal and Institutional Framework”, while stating that in India, given the Constitutional mandate states have the control over all water resources, laments that in the absence of a national legislation addressing all aspects of water resource management in an integrated and efficient way, states have so far done very little on water supply, conservation and its efficient use. Referring to the National Water Mission (NWM) under the National Action Plan for Climate Change, 2008 that envisages number of strategies for integrated water resource management and provides for increasing water use efficiency (WUE) as one of its key objectives, he opines that if WUE as an effective strategy under the Mission has to see the light of the day, the government needs to think towards evolving a national legal and institutional framework for the effective implementation of the Mission.
The conference saw near unanimity for the need to have a comprehensive and effective Industrial Water Policy. The absence of Industrial water policy in the country was discussed at the conference and the findings and recommendations of the conference are expected to formulate an effective Industrial Water Policy. The emphasis was given on effective and efficient use of water by industries and recycling of industrial waste water. The transparency in the figures of water consumption of the industries was also stressed upon. The conference has forged a collaboration and synergy between industry and water sectors.
The core focus of the conference was water conservation and dealing with global climatic challenges, to bring forth an effective water policy and future plans for proper management of water resources. The conference focused on issues of water conservation management since there is a dire need for industries to now share the responsibility towards judicious usage of water. Issues such as practical systems for water distribution in small and medium scale industries, efficient utilization of sewage and industrial water wastes and water use efficiency in Indian national legal and institutional framework were also discussed.
