Case study of water supply in Jaipur from

Bisalpur Dam
M2013UPP005
1 Introduction
Our case study is about the water supply system in Jaipur whose one of the
sources is Bisalpur Water Dam. We reect upon the growing urbanisation
trend and the climate variability which are predicted to make the water
supply system fragile in Jaipur. We also discover that the current scenario of
groundwater availability is deteriorating and worsening the water system in
Jaipur and peri-urban areas of the city. We will explore the various agencies
and institutional mechanisms in operation in the area and make a analytical
comment upon these mechanisms in relation to ground water, better planning
of surface water, delivery and conservation of water.
We will build our arguments by assessing the urbanisation trend in the
world and resulting issues for water supply system (WSS) . Then we shall
assess the case of Jaipur and make a comparative statement on the current
issues in the city.
1.1 Urbanisation and Water system
Almost half of the world resident lives in cities but occupy less than 2% of
the land area
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. It is evident that the provision for water in cities must
come through sources external to its urban environment. Due to pragmatic
reasons, such as landuse, availability and valuation of land , it does not seem
possible for rapidly urbanising countries such as India to make cities self sus-
tainable in the provision of water to its citizens. It is bound to have impact
on the peri-urban and villages surrounding the urban areas. As argued by
1
http://atlas.aaas.org/index.php?part=2&sec=landuse&sub=urbanization
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Anthony[1], who denes urban as the interacting conuence of locality, tech-
nology and institutions. Urban cannot be segregated on the basis of density
or industrial activity.
There is lot of literature available about the impact of urbanisation on water
resource management, on hydrological cycle and water quality.
1.2 Groundwater system
Groundwater use in India has drastically increased over the last few decades.
It is now the backbone of agriculture and drinking water security in In-
dia.Since 1970, an overwhelming majority (80 percent) of the total addition
to the net irrigated area has come from groundwater, ensuring that it ac-
counts for around 60 percent of irrigation water use [2]. As for drinking
water, about 80 percent of drinking water needs come from groundwater [3].
Further, groundwater remains the only source of drinking water for most ru-
ral households and forms an important complement to the municipal water
supply in most towns and cities.
Groundwater is of central importance for the overwhelming majority of the
population and the number of groundwater-related issues is rapidly rising.
2 Water Supply Context
Rajasthan is the largest state in the country, it covers 10% of the land area,
1.16% of the surface water resources and has to cater 5.6% of the population.
Out of 142 desert blocks in the country, 85 are located in the state primarily
in the western parts. Groundwater conditions in the state is at alarming
stage, almost all the districts in the state are aected by the contaminants
in the ground water of high salinity, ouride, nitrate, chloride content in
it. The surface water resources in the state are mainly conned to southern
parts such as Udaipur and south-eastern parts such as Kota, Jhalawar of the
State. [4]
2.1 Jaipur
Jaipur is a capital city of Rajasthan and has a high rural to urban migration
rates. The share of rural to urban migration in comparison to total migration
2
in the period between 1991-2000 is about 53% [5]. Changes in land use in
the peri-urban areas are eliminating groundwater recharge zones , untreated
sewage dump in the ground and untreated commercial auents. Prior to the
Bisalpur WSS, 97% of water needs of the city was dependent upon ground-
water and as remarked in section 2, high level of contamination may cause
diarrhoea and methemoglobinemia
2
.
Jaipur has a total municipal area of 467 sqkm. Area of 215 sq km is
connected by the piped water supply system.
Jaipur has a population of around 30 lac people out of which 29.70 lakh
is covered by the piped water system.
It has a water demand of 462 million litres per day
Water supply in Jaipur is met primarily by two sources : Dams/Reservoir
and Groundwater. Bisalpur Dam is located in Tonk district about 100 km
from Jaipur. It is a gravity dam and fed by river Banas which is a tributary
of Chambal and lies in the Ganga basic. It came into operation in 1999 and
used for irrigation, drinking/water supply . It has a catchment area of 2772.6
thousand hectare (th ha).[6]
Bisalpur Jaipur water supply project was nanced through debt by JICA
(Japan International Co-operation Agency) and ADB in March 2004. JICA
gave Rs 534 cr at an interest rate of 1.3% with deferment period of 10 years
and repayment period of 30 years. It is expected to provide 24x7 water supply
to the city and reducing its dependance on groundwater. Public Health and
Engineering Department was responsible for the execution of the project.
2.2 Water Supply Situation
According to CEDSJ [7], out of citys total production of 401 mld of water
supply system in 2010, 368 mld came from tubewells while Bisalpur Dam pro-
vided 33 mld of water. The sources for this report is attributed to personal
communication for data acquisition. However, the government presentations
does not dier much but that 72 mld is provisioned by Bisalpur WSS.
There are 1897 government-owned and operated tubewells scattered through-
out the city, which are responsible for the bulk of total production yield
2
Nitrate nitrogen metabolizes into nitrite nitrogen in the body, and the nitrite nitrogen
oxidizes the hemoglobin in the blood
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290mld of water. Rest of the supply is done by Bisalpur WSS. Water supply
to dierent distribution zones is done though head works consisting of tube
wells, Clear Water reservoirs (CWR), pumping stations, Service Reservoirs
(SR). Water is collected from tube wells and collected into CWR pumped to
SR and supplied during supply hrs. Surplus water is transferred to decit
zones through transfer mains as ground water availability is not uniform
through out the city. In addition, there are roughly 2,477 private hand-
pumps installed at various locations.[7]. Local groundwater extraction rates
exceed that of the recharge rate, decreasing water tables at an average rate
of 1 metre per year.
Tanker Transportation
Tanker transportation of water is being done in connected as well as un-
connected areas of city throughout the year. Number of tanker trips during
summers is about 2800. Presently, number of trips is limited to about 1000.
Out this about 300 are running in outer unconnected areas and balance in
the connected areas [8].
Distribution Losses
Jaipur has a high distribution losses of around 44% in 2000 [9]. It is mainly
due to illegal tapping of pipes by households, industries and irrigation projects.
It is expected that these losses must have been reduced by using SCADA sys-
tems to operate and monitor in transfer systems.
3 Climate Variability and Water Availability
Many cities around the world are faced with the problems of climate vari-
ability. We refrain ourselves from calling it climate change (CC) because CC
is a long term phenomenon, it is observed over a period of 30 years or more.
Erratic rainfall, inadequate tools to conserve that rainfall and indiscriminate
extraction has led to severe depletion of groundwater. There is a possibility
that this phenomenon will lead to reduction in catchment area of the dam
and hence less than expected supply in future. The precise climate change
predictions are extremely dicult to do, but looking at the past 20 years
data the rainfall is on continuous decline in the Jaipur.
Climate modelling and predictions
4
Eorts have been made to predict the rainfall patterns aected by cli-
mate variability. Climate change scenarios on global and regional scales are
generated by Global Circulation models and Regional Circulation models on
the basis of dierent emission scenarios. It has been found that there will be
drop in rainfall in all seasons except October-November. Higher likelihood
3
of drought years and variability in arrival of monsoon. [7]
4 State Water Policy
Govt. of Rajasthan came up with Water policy in 2010. Alarmed with the
fast depleting groundwater table at the rate 3 metres per year. [10] It came
up with the broad policy directives to ensure conservation, quality, optimim
utilisation of water resources.
Information system - Development of information system, ensure
free exchange and avoid duplication of data.
Prudent and ecient Planning - Water resource projects should
be predict future demands of irrigation, drinking, industrial, thermal
and hydroelectric projects.
Institutional Reforms- Encourage of private initiative in the water
sector, economic analysis and feasibility studies, monitoring and eval-
uation of existing water projects.
Groundwater Development - New legislation should be introduced
and attempt to control deep drilling through licensing.
Water Priority - National Water Policy, 2012 gives water allocation
priority to drinking water, irrigation and industrial use. The state
water policy also recommends the same order of priority.
5 Problem identied
There is no dearth of problems related to the water system in Jaipur such
as distribution losses, groundwater depletion, expanding of peri-urban areas,
3
a subjective assignment of possibility to an event for which one has little knowledge
and no abil- ity to verify the results
5
migration, climate change, erratic rainfall, supply of water to intermediate
areas between source to destination, Non revenue water, capital and recurring
cost recovery, pricing of water, equitable distribution, nancing of new water
projects and others.
5.1 Groundwater Situation
Figure 1: Estimation of groundwater resources in Rajasthan as of 2001. Src :
Groundwater Department and Central Groundwater Board
The problem of groundwater needs to be addressed urgently and has
been recognised at political and administrative level. The State water policy
prescribes to bring new groundwater legislation and control deep drilling.
But it has not been translated into action in comparison to the gravity of
the problem. The situation of groundwater is sharply deteriorating in the
state. Out of 248 Groundwater blocks in the state , around 70% are in the
critical state having more than 100% exploitation , see 5.1.
6 Institutions in water resources
Institutions are entities dened by a conguration of legal, policy, and orga-
nizational rules, conventions, and practices that are structurally linked and
operationally embedded within a well-specied environment [12]. Elinor Os-
trom developed an Institutional Analysis and Development Framework which
characterizes institutions in terms of three hierarchically related categories
of rules: constitutional-choice rules, collective-choice rules, and operational
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rules . Laws are outcome of the constitutional-choice and policies are the out-
come of the collective choice through the political process while operational
rules are to give eect to the laws and policies. Water related institutions
can be classied as water laws, water policies and water administration.
6.1 At Macro Level
6.1.1 Water Laws
Water is a state subject. State has every right to do whatsoever with the wa-
ter within its boundaries except inter-state water interest. India doesnt have
exclusive water law outlining legal provisions for its provision to its citizens
and penal actions. The laws are dispersed in various irrigation acts, court
decisions, criminal procedure code. The legal system to counter the emerging
challenges related to ground water, wastage, usage ( industrial, commercial
or domestic), climate change impact is missing in a single law.
Rajasthan has a Soil and Water Conservation Act, 1964 which provides for
improvement and conservation of soil and water resources in the State by
taking exclusive rights over notied areas, establishment of Soil and water
conservation committees and preparation of conservation plans. The plans
for enacting new water resources law is also on the board to contain excess
groundwater exploitation. It proposes to manage water resources by encour-
aging public participation.
In Rajasthan, several agencies and departments are involved in the use
and monitoring of water resources. It includes Water Resource Department,
Agriculture Department, Command Area Development Department, State
Groundwater Department, State Pollution Control Board, Department of
Industries and Department of Environment and Forest.
To co-ordinate among these agencies, state govt constituted another depart-
ment to achieve integrated approach to the development, planning and use
of water resources. This department was named as State Water Resources
Planning Department (SWPRD) [11] . The objective of SWPRD is to achieve
the state water policy objectives outlined in section 4 .
The existence of so many institutions to regulate water use, pollution, allo-
cation has created problems in sharing of information among departments,
The water source and utilisation can be segregated in these manner such as
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irrigation, groundwater, command area but water eciency cannot be main-
tained through these multiple agencies. It is evident that to regulate these
agencies another agency needs to be formed. Having said that, we dont
mean that water should be left to the people to regulate but the number of
agencies involved in the overseeing creates bureaucratic impedence.
6.1.2 Climate change consequences
Rajasthan government has created State action plan on Climate Change(SAPCC)
on the lines of National Action Plan on Climate Change . The State Govern-
ment established a Climate Change and CDM Cell in the State Pollution
Control Board to act as a nodal agency to deal with all the issues related
with Climate Change(CC) in the State. The SAPCC recognises the direct
impact of climate change on groundwater resources. It also mentions the
impact on hydrological cycles due to climate variations. However, the need
for research and development in this eld has been left uncared. The im-
pact is certain but how much impact is the important and serious question.
The policies to address Climate change can happen when the institutions are
established and are given resources to assess those impacts and relationships.
Climate change will further increase ground water extraction due to less
availability of surface water and rising demand which could further deterio-
rate ground water quality and have serious eects on health of people.
6.1.3 Sectoral Policies
The subsidies for irrigation in the form of power and pumps has led to the
adverse impacts on the water resources. Moreover, farmers at the head-ends
of irrigation projects tend to extract more water and shift their cropping
patterns towards water intensive crops.
6.1.4 Innovation and technology led practices
It is necessary to use GIS based aquifer mapping techniques with local assis-
tance to better plan the groundwater resources, catchment area of the lakes
or rivers. An implementation plan should be developed which should focus
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on constructing rain water harvesting structures in dierent ground water
stressed regions.[13]
6.2 At Micro level
6.2.1 Localised Institutions
The institutions as far we have seen does not specify any legal rights for
the water. There are evidence of existence of informal water rights among
individuals and groups. The problems of water are local (however, they have
far-reaching impacts as well), so the solution also needs to be local. The
water permit system practiced in many parts for the canal irrigation shows
the potential to create local institutions to regulate water use.
Moreover, it should be mandatory for the people constructing houses greater
than 300 sq m to have an eective rainwater harvesting system in place. The
local government should take an initiative to ensure that all their buildings
have such type of structures. It has been seen that when government make
such rules they themselves do not have capability to implement them in their
own backyard.
7 Conclusion
The institutional functions which were highlighted in section 6 are few of the
mechanisms suggested to improve the current gaps. Climate change is set
to exacerbate the water scenario in Jaipur and peri-urban areas are likely to
suer more as they are not included in planning of cities. Though, satellite
towns and outgrowth areas are given importance in the 2025 Master Plan of
Jaipur.
Management of groundwater water resources, water supply diversication
and research in climate change are areas that needs to be addressed. The
institutions at the state level has to commensurate with the national level
plans. The multiplicity of agencies DDand dierent power to these agencies
result in duplication of work and bureaucratic hassles in co-ordination.
The problems of water has too be solved in integrated manner. The State
water policy of Rajasthan, SAPCC and JaipuPr Master Plan recognises the
problem and proposes ways to intends to solve them but the research insti-
tutions are in lacking. The state government is dependent upon the external
agencies to do research in the eld of climate change and its impacts.
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It is needed that formal water sector is engaged with the informal sector such
as borewell, tanker suppliers because climate change adaptation will not be
in a planned manner but in an autonomous manner at an individual or a
group level. The informal sectos should be involved and educate them for
the better water management and provide incentives for alternate and wiser
water use. Challenges of socio-economic development combined with climate
change problems will give priority to the former as that poses an immediate
challenges.
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[13] Rajasthan State Action Plan on Climate Change report,
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[14] National Action Plan on Climate Change report, http://www.moef.
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