The government plans to create a policy to gauge the per-unit consumption of water for which companies soon have to do a water audit, according to a report by Business Standard.
Sectors like coal, steel, cement and power will get a mark for water consumption by the Ministry of Jal Shakti which is now in the initial phases.
The water crisis has been a pressing issue for India’s groundwater continues to deplete. According to a report by Niti Aayog, 21 Indian cities will run out of groundwater by next year, including the capital New Delhi and the information technology hub of Bengaluru. Two hundred thousand Indians already die every year because they don’t have a safe water supply, the report said. A shocking 600 million people face high to extreme water stress.
It is still an evolving discussion, but one needs to get a clear picture of water consumption by industries. There could be a disclosure on water by companies in their balance sheets, said a senior official to the paper.
The government will set targets for consumption for each industry once it gauges the present consumption level.
Experts have said that the royalty for the water usage is very cheap, compared to energy. If it is priced correctly, the industry will have to treat it as a limited ecological resource.
State pollution boards maintain records of industrial water consumption but they have remained fragmented.
The Ministry of Jal Shakti is also in talks with the Agriculture Ministry as there is a problem of out of proportion use of water in irrigation. Also, India uses three to five times more water than other nations like China, Israel and the US, according to the data by Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations.
The ministry launched a campaign for behavioural change of the public towards conserving water on July 1.
