Agitations over the distribution of water in the Cauvery river are not new or surprising given the extreme dependence on agricultural and economic activity in the river basin. Karnataka and Tamil Nadu are fighting over water in a drying river, paying little attention to framing long-term solutions.
South India has always been highly dependent on the monsoon, which is uncertain and risky. Over the past few decades, the south-west monsoon has become unpredictable and has reduced in intensity.
What does this mean for the Cauvery?
The amount of water the river receives during the summer rains is becoming increasingly unreliable. In good years, when the river receives enough rainfall, there is no discord between the two States. In bad years, like the one we are facing now, it turns into a gargantuan political crisis. Unfortunately, the number of bad years is only going to worsen.
Land use
The Cauvery river’s fertile basin has encouraged the growth of forests, agriculture and industry, all of which coexist in an uneasy manner and are now threatened.
We need to pay attention to land use at the regional level.
Dense forest cover once helped reduce the likelihood of flash flooding, retaining water on hill slopes to enable slow percolation and recharge of the tributaries.
Deforestation across the basin has contributed to reduction in rainfall, soil erosion, and flooding, with hundreds of thousands of trees being decimated to make way for plantations, urban construction, and agriculture. In the place of forests, plantations of water-hungry trees such as eucalyptus and acacia are further reducing the water table.
In Coorg, local groups have agitated against the felling of lakhs of trees for the construction of a new railway line from Mysuru, and a high-tension power line. They have received little support from the local and national administration despite warning of the effect on the river.
These are not isolated incidents; deforestation is widespread along the length and breadth of the river. Tree clearing is now threatening even previously protected sites on mountain heights and steep slopes, sensitive zones where soil erosion further impacts river recharge.
Rapid urbanisation has converted fertile agriculture, forests and wetlands into concreted areas that are unable to retain rainwater or channel them into tributary streams that feed the Cauvery.
Urbanisation demands concrete; concrete requires sand. In the districts surrounding the Cauvery, rampant sand mining has altered the natural topography of the river, eroding its banks, widening the river, and altering water flow patterns.
Despite warnings from environmentalist groups and farmer coalitions, and interventions by the court, this practice continues unchecked. It is no surprise that the wells that replenish farms across the basin are running dry — or that desperate farmers are reduced to abandoning agriculture and renting their farms to sand contractors for sand storage, thus becoming complicit in their own destruction.
The large number of dams across the river contribute to a significant decrease in the river’s capacity for water storage.
Siltation in dams and connecting river channels has reached alarming proportions. Industries along the Cauvery and its tributaries send large volumes of polluted water that, far from being of use to farmers, destroy their land beyond redemption.
There is no farming activity for kilometres on the side of tributaries such as the Noyyal, polluted by Tiruppur’s textile industry. The toxic sludge from industrial effluents builds up on the river bed, further reducing its capacity for storage. Despite abundant discussion, government funding for de-siltation of the river’s channels remains conspicuous by its absence.
Changes in agricultural patterns
Widespread changes in farming and agricultural patterns exacerbate the problem. Once an area of millet cultivation, the Cauvery basin has transformed into a location for the cultivation of high-yield paddy and sugar cane, both water-intensive crops.
There needs to be a redesign of the farming system, keeping in mind in particular the water requirements of the crops planted after the onset of the south-west monsoon.
What are Karnataka and Tamil Nadu planning to do in terms of developing more water-smart agricultural strategies?
There is little discussion on this. Though a politically charged topic, it is one that must be addressed through conversations with farmers who seem well aware of these issues. They need better alternatives and greater state assistance in facilitating explorations of alternative cropping strategies, including an examination of a possible return to millet farming (which is more nutritious as well as water-efficient), or to multi-cropping of vegetables, or even to the development of more water-efficient varieties of paddy.
While Karnataka and Tamil Nadu struggle to find workable solutions to the distribution of water in the river during years of drought, the writing on the wall is clear.
As climate change makes its impact visible, we are going to face many more seasons of drought and points of conflict. It is important that we think long term and in a coordinated fashion across the basin.
We need to find ways to recharge the river, increase inflow of water, clean up hotspots of pollution, and increase the efficiency of water use.
For this, we must take up afforestation along the river on a war footing, move to water-efficient cropping, limit industrial pollution of rivers, ban excessive sand mining, and limit the growing consumption of water for cities and towns along the river. This requires conversation and cooperation across the basin, not reactive conflict. Given the politically charged minefield that the Cauvery water-sharing issue has become, we can only hope for reasoned, concerted action.
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In a diverse country like India, where each State is socially, culturally, economically, and politically distinct, measuring Governance becomes increasingly tricky. The Public Affairs Index (PAI 2021) is a scientifically rigorous, data-based framework that measures the quality of governance at the Sub-national level and ranks the States and Union Territories (UTs) of India on a Composite Index (CI).
States are classified into two categories – Large and Small – using population as the criteria.
In PAI 2021, PAC defined three significant pillars that embody Governance – Growth, Equity, and Sustainability. Each of the three Pillars is circumscribed by five governance praxis Themes.
The themes include – Voice and Accountability, Government Effectiveness, Rule of Law, Regulatory Quality and Control of Corruption.
At the bottom of the pyramid, 43 component indicators are mapped to 14 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that are relevant to the States and UTs.
This forms the foundation of the conceptual framework of PAI 2021. The choice of the 43 indicators that go into the calculation of the CI were dictated by the objective of uncovering the complexity and multidimensional character of development governance
The Equity Principle
The Equity Pillar of the PAI 2021 Index analyses the inclusiveness impact at the Sub-national level in the country; inclusiveness in terms of the welfare of a society that depends primarily on establishing that all people feel that they have a say in the governance and are not excluded from the mainstream policy framework.
This requires all individuals and communities, but particularly the most vulnerable, to have an opportunity to improve or maintain their wellbeing. This chapter of PAI 2021 reflects the performance of States and UTs during the pandemic and questions the governance infrastructure in the country, analysing the effectiveness of schemes and the general livelihood of the people in terms of Equity.
Growth and its Discontents
Growth in its multidimensional form encompasses the essence of access to and the availability and optimal utilisation of resources. By resources, PAI 2021 refer to human resources, infrastructure and the budgetary allocations. Capacity building of an economy cannot take place if all the key players of growth do not drive development. The multiplier effects of better health care, improved educational outcomes, increased capital accumulation and lower unemployment levels contribute magnificently in the growth and development of the States.
The Pursuit Of Sustainability
The Sustainability Pillar analyses the access to and usage of resources that has an impact on environment, economy and humankind. The Pillar subsumes two themes and uses seven indicators to measure the effectiveness of government efforts with regards to Sustainability.
The Curious Case Of The Delta
The Delta Analysis presents the results on the State performance on year-on-year improvement. The rankings are measured as the Delta value over the last five to 10 years of data available for 12 Key Development Indicators (KDI). In PAI 2021, 12 indicators across the three Pillars of Equity (five indicators), Growth (five indicators) and Sustainability (two indicators). These KDIs are the outcome indicators crucial to assess Human Development. The Performance in the Delta Analysis is then compared to the Overall PAI 2021 Index.
Key Findings:-
In the Scheme of Things
The Scheme Analysis adds an additional dimension to ranking of the States on their governance. It attempts to complement the Governance Model by trying to understand the developmental activities undertaken by State Governments in the form of schemes. It also tries to understand whether better performance of States in schemes reflect in better governance.
The Centrally Sponsored schemes that were analysed are National Health Mission (NHM), Umbrella Integrated Child Development Services scheme (ICDS), Mahatma Gandh National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan (SmSA) and MidDay Meal Scheme (MDMS).
National Health Mission (NHM)
INTEGRATED CHILD DEVELOPMENT SERVICES (ICDS)
MID- DAY MEAL SCHEME (MDMS)
SAMAGRA SHIKSHA ABHIYAN (SMSA)
MAHATMA GANDHI NATIONAL RURAL EMPLOYMENT GUARANTEE SCHEME (MGNREGS)