Irrigation tips from an arid country

When Prime Minister Narendra Modi visits Israel this week, he will become the first Indian PM to do so

The India-Israel cooperation is likely to extend to water and agriculture

In the run-up to the PM’s visit, ICRIER and the Israeli Embassy in India collaborated on a brainstorming session on a potential partnership between the two countries on water

For India- Water is a concern:

It is well-known that India is water stressed

The country’s annual per capita availability of water is less than 1,500 cubic meters (cum) and that scenario is likely to worsen

Currently, about 78 per cent of fresh water in India is used for agriculture

Lessons from Israel:

• Israel has per capita water availability of less than 200 cum
• It is an extremely water scarce region
• Yet, the country exports high-value agri-produce to Europe and many other parts of the world
• The country is known as the land of innovations in water management, be it drip irrigation, recycling of urban wastewater for use in agriculture or desalinisation of seawater for drinking purposes
• Work already started in India:
• The Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana (PMKSY) encapsulates the PM’s ideas of “Har khet ko paani” and “more crop per drop”
• Micro-irrigation technologies — drip irrigation and sprinklers — are not alien to India
• India has about nine million hectares under micro-irrigation
• This can be scaled up several times

How will scaling up happen?

Israel can offer lessons to India in this respect

Any scaling up of technologies needs the right policy environment

Water is not a free good and needs to be priced to reflect its scarcity

So far the government has not shown much appetite to reform the regime of high subsidies on water and power, which is leading to their inefficient use

What Israel does?

As per Israel’s water law, all water in the country is common property resource

The government does accounting for every drop of water, ensuring good water governance

As a result, in 2013, of the total water available in Israel almost 16 per cent came from desalinating seawater and another 22 percent came from recycling wastewater

Almost 62 per cent of the irrigation water used in Israel comes from recycled and brackish water, thus saving potable water for domestic use

Such recycling endeavours, with proper treatment that make wastewater safe, have relevance in India

Way Forward for India:

Government can include recycling of wastewater for use in peri-urban agriculture as an integral part of its smart city initiative (India has the technology for this purpose)

Desalination technology can benefit India which has a long coastline of about 7,500 km

An integrated approach to solving India’s emerging water crisis, involving government to government, governance to business and business to business interactions between Indians and Israeli agencies has much to offer

Basics 

• Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER)
• ICRIER is an autonomous, policy-oriented, not-for-profit, economic policy think tank
•  ICRIER’s main focus is to enhance the knowledge content of policy making by undertaking analytical research
• Research is targeted at informing India’s policy makers and also at improving the interface with the global economy
• ICRIER conducts thematic research in the following eight thrust areas:
• Macroeconomic Management Financial Liberalisation and Regulation
• Global Competitiveness of the Indian Economy – Agriculture, Manufacturing and Services
• Multilateral Trade Negotiations and FTAs
• Challenges and Opportunities of Urbanization
• Climate Change and Sustainable Development
• Physical and Social Infrastructure including Telecom, Transport, Energy and Health
• Asian Economic Integration with Focus on South Asia
• Promoting Entrepreneurship and skill development

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