The Hindu : Draft norms for water audit, conservation

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Feb 03, 2004

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National

Draft norms for water audit, conservation

By Gargi Parsai

NEW DELHI, FEB. 2. The Centre has come out with draft `Guidelines for Water Audit and Water Conservation' in three areas of water use, domestic, irrigation and industrial, for States. The guidelines are a step towards measured distribution of water and recovery of costs.

The water audit will determine the amount of water lost from a distribution system due to leakage and the cost of this loss to the utility. This seems to be a prelude to water costing and water charges based on a study conducted by the World Bank for the Water Resources Ministry.

Water audit is considered "imperative" to devise water rates and mechanism for recovery of water charges in such a manner so as to meet at least the annual cost of management, operations and maintenance of the system and recover a proportionate portion of capital investment on the project in order to make it self-sustainable.

Water audit includes maintaining a record of the amount of water produced and delivered to metered and unmetered users, a record of water loss and the measures to address loss through leakages and unaccounted losses.

For instance, water charges are recovered from farmers on the basis of the area being irrigated. The guidelines prepared by the Central Water Commission and Central Ground Water Board call for introduction of a volumetric system of measuring water use by farmers. "Such a system of water pricing will discourage farmers from excess and wasteful use of water," the guidelines say. The inadequate operation and maintenance cost in irrigation is attributed to low water rates and poor recovery from farmers.

The draft guidelines, apparently relying on the World Bank report, recommend the formation of water users associations wherein water is delivered in bulk to the association on a volumetric basis. They are required in turn to distribute water among individual farmers and collect charges from them. Water demand for irrigation is dominant among all sectors of water use.

The average per capita requirement of water for domestic purposes has been estimated by the Ministries of Rural Areas and Employment and Urban Affairs and Employment as 40 litres per capita per day for rural populations (lpcd) and 70 lpcd for towns without sewerage and 140 lpcd for urban areas. The Environmental Hygiene Committee has recommended that these supply levels be considered as maximum for conserving water. The domestic audit of metered and unmetered water audit is considered necessary for treatment of water, to bring it to drinking water standard and will be "costly to the supplier" the guidelines say. It calls for an inventory of water meters, an analysis of water loss and methods to reduce the loss and a periodic checking of accuracy of meters. The guidelines call for industrial audit by effluent treatment and lowering of industrial waste into water bodies and minimising waste.

The Minister for Water Resources, Arjun Charan Sethi, said the Central Water Commission had been carrying out performance evaluation studies of irrigation projects and had taken the initiative to promote benchmarking of irrigation projects for improving efficiency. The future water requirement of the country is estimated at 1095 billion cubic metres in 2025 and 1447 bcm for 2050 at the current level of 83 per cent of total water use in irrigation, followed by 5 per cent in domestic and 3 per cent in industrial use. The guidelines call for States to formulate their own region-specific, project specific and any other service specific norms.

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