Virtual Water

India is the largest exporter of rice in the world and it accounts for 25% of global rice trade. India is the third-largest coffee exporter in Asia and the third-largest sugar exporter in the world. The automobile hub, Chennai popularly called Detroit of India, accounts for 60% of automotive exports. All these news headlines make us feel proud.. right?

I also felt the same until I heard the news - "India is the largest exporter of water, even though its taps are running dry across the country". How this can be possible in a country where 12% of people already reached 'Day Zero' and many are depending on tanker lorries for water. I was shocked to hear this and out of curiosity, I did further research on water trade and got a few interesting and alarming facts.

Are we getting enough water as input/source?

• According to the Central Water Commission, the annual water requirement of India is 3,000 billion cubic meters while it receives 4,000 billion cubic meters of rain every year on average. (1 cubic meter = 1000 liters) .

          So India is a water surplus country. Then who is drinking our drinking water?

Let's look at consumption

• 89% of groundwater is used for agriculture, 9% for household use and 2% for industrial use. We are focusing on saving 9% and 2% consumption and not even thinking about 89% agriculture consumption and ways to conserve it.

Let’s find the culprit who is guzzling our water.

• Major commodities we export like rice, coffee, sugar, textiles, beef, car, etc are all water-intensive demanding more water to produce them. While exporting these commodities we are indirectly exporting the water required to produce them and this is called virtual water export. For example, to produce one Kg of rice, we need 3000 liters of water, to grow coffee beans for one cup of coffee, we need 140 liters of water, 2700 liters for one t-shirt, 1653 liters for 1 kg of polished sugar,75 liters for 1 mug of beer, 2500 liters for one burger, 1,47631 liters for a car.
• Namakkal is exporting lakhs of eggs to gulf countries every day but to produce one egg we need 200 liters of water.   The secret behind the developed nations importing clothes and cars from India and other developing countries is to preserve their own water resources and also to prevent pollution.
• Italy which is popular for its footwear is importing the processed leather from India. As a result, leather factories in Ambur, Vaniyambadi, Ranipet have exploited the Palar river and also ruined the groundwater.
• Water deficient desert nation Israel is a water surplus because 80% of Israel’s wastewater is recycled for agriculture use.

Solution:

• India has to revisit its trading pattern and scale down the export of water-intensive commodities to conserve water.
• Recycle, reuse and reduce - India captures only eight percent of its annual rainfall - among the lowest in the world.
• Should explore other irrigation methods like drip irrigation instead of traditional flood irrigation.
• And, finally, we have to save the wetlands & water bodies.

A Niti Aayog report released last year predicts Day Zero for 21 Indian cities by next year.

The irony is that after exporting such amounts of water, we buy packaged water sold by MNC firms for Rs.15 per liter.