Firms likely to do water audit as govt plans policy to assess consumption

Companies might soon have to do a water audit as the government plans to create a policy to assess the per unit consumption of water. This is part of the Centre’s efforts to create sustainable water resources in the country, said a senior government official. 

The Ministry of Jal Shakti is in the initial stages of discussing a policy framework for benchmarking water consumption in sectors such as cement, coal, steel, and power. “It is still an evolving discussion, but we need 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 government official. 

The first step would be to ascertain the present level of consumption and thereafter fix targets for each industry. “Based on the targets, we can create a mechanism to incentivise or disincentivise consumption,” the senior official added. 

The government will draw from the perform-achieve-target scheme, which exists for the energy sector to regulate energy consumption. According to the Bureau of Energy Efficiency: “Perform-achieve-target scheme is a regulatory instrument to reduce specific energy consumption in energy-intensive industries, with an associated market-based mechanism to enhance the cost-effectiveness through certification of excess energy saving which can be traded.”

When companies conduct a value-chain analysis, water figures at the bottom of the list because of low pricing, said experts. “The royalty for 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,” said water expert Vishwanathan S. 

Currently most of the data on industrial water consumption is maintained by the state pollution control boards, but it is highly fragmented. 

While the data received by industries will help further the guidelines for water conservation, the Ministry of Jal Shakti is also in talks with the Ministry of Agriculture to tackle the strain on water resources due to irrigation. 

India has a disproportionate use of water per crop using three to five times more irrigation water than China, the US, and Israel, according to the data by Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations. 

Jal Shakti Abhiyan launched 

The new water ministry on July 1 also launched the Jal Shakti Abhiyan to drive a behavioural change in public towards conserving water. Speaking at the launch, Jal Shakti Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, said, “It is a Big Brother role that the Government of India is taking on, to create sensitivity about the subject across states.”

The ministry is not expecting any additional funds coming its way in the Budget. “There are plenty of funds available for different schemes and states. It could all be converged into one scheme,” said Shekhawat.

The campaign will be taken up in two phases — July-September and October-November — to cover both the monsoon and the retreating monsoon season.