On The Contrary | Episode 1: Is India going to run out of water?

Ajith Radhakrishnan (senior specialist, World Bank) and Jagdeesh Rao Puppala (former CEO, FES) discuss the state of India's water crisis and why innovations at the community and policy level are crucial for a water secure future.

"Now, we are not looking at a doomsday scenario. Of course, we do have challenges in terms of management, and the overall problem of management of water in the country. There is also a problem of lack of science and data-backed decisions that happen when it comes to management. But there is also promise in the way that different stakeholders are looking at water. Increasingly, water is seen as an economic resource, which it has always been. But I think the recognition of water as an economic resource is coming to the top. It is also seen as something that is very critical for [India’s] development story. If India needs to prosper, if India needs to grow, then obviously it needs to conserve its water resources better. So that realisation is there among different stakeholders. But when it comes to the implementation of different schemes and programmes, I think we would need to do a bit better by bringing together different stakeholders, by working together better, and finding the means to create a better story out of this". - Ajith Radhakrishnan

"So in terms of that understanding, that water [security] is not a supply and demand [issue relating to] just the quantity of water, but the quality [of water] and it being a medium for various forms of life, [my assessment is] that we are living in a very precarious situation. I think there is a need for high-level innovations on the institutional apparatus, which is required for addressing this problem at scale, and at a pace where we can address this issue meaningfully in the next 10–15 years or so. So the institutional apparatus has to be backed by solid mechanisms, say, the panchayat or a much larger unit, maybe a block or a landscape. That kind of an institutional mechanism is required. The institutional mechanism also doesn’t necessarily reduce it to only village people. Institutions are what happen between governments, academia, the local corporations or markets that are present in the area. What is the kind of governance arrangements between these various actors? And [what are] the rules of the game between these actors?" - Jagdeesh Rao Puppala

The episode was produced by Maed in India.