Samrat Sengupta, Viviek Kumar & Nishant Bhardwaj      vivek@sdalt.ernet.in

The population of India is 1 billion and is estimated to reach between 1.5-1.8 billion by the year 2050. About seventy per cent of the Indian population lives in rural areas and is dependent mainly on agriculture and agro-based livelihoods.  Out of this, about forty per cent live below poverty line and suffer from lack of basic amenities like safe drinking water, water for irrigation and energy. This results in low agricultural productivity, limited economic opportunities and thus, poverty.  Poverty further leads to lack of awareness among the communities and gives way to inefficient practices of resource use.  The inefficient resource management practices put further stress on the already scarce natural resources, giving rise to a vicious cycle. Any development effort will be effective and sustainable only when it is approached in an integrated manner and addresses inter-sectoral issues.

Gender is an integral and inseparable part of rural livelihoods. Men and women have different assets, access to resources and opportunities. Women rarely own land and are not educated due to discriminatory access as children since their access to productive resources as well as decision-making tend to occur through the mediation of men. However, a lot of time of rural women is spent in non-productive activities. Rural women have the primary responsibility to collect fuelwood from the forest and drinking water from the nearest available source, often about five kilometres away.

The huge amount of time spent by village women in collection of fuelwood, fodder and water leaves them with very little time to nurture their families, supplement the household income, provide them economic independence and the rightful pride of place in society. 

In general, villagers use firewood, agricultural residues and dung cakes for cooking and kerosene for lighting. All these devices are very inefficient and result in poor indoor air quality, containing high levels of toxic emission and suspended particulates that have a direct impact on the health of the women and their children who are largely exposed to the emission. Access to clean fuel such as LPG, biogas and efficient stoves is limited to a small number of families. Electricity grid is extended to a large part of rural India but the quality of power is very poor and its availability is not reliable. The villages can thus be termed as “theoretically electrified villages”. In addition, there are 18,000 villages in remote areas that are yet to be connected to the grid.

Since rains in India are confined to a short period of monsoon months, most of the irrigation requirements are met by ground water and the water collected in ponds and lakes (and in certain cases from rivers). In the semi-arid and arid parts of the country, the water table lies at great depths and water can be lifted through electric pumps only.

The average annual surface water flow in India has been estimated as 1869 billion cubic meters; of which only 690 b.c.m. can be harnessed, keeping in view the current storage capacity. In addition to surface water, the potential of groundwater resources has been estimated as 432 b.c.m. About 65% of total cultivated land (11.76 lakhs Hectares) in the country is not having the facility of irrigation. The country will be water stressed even if the total available water is taken into account. Dependence of farmers on monsoons forces them to cultivate a single crop, resulting in low agricultural productivity.

Drinking water is another major concern for village communities. It is the village women again who have to travel long distances to fetch water from the well, hand pumps, ponds, springs and canals. Besides the availability, the quality of water is another issue confronting the villagers. In many tracts of the country, water bodies are polluted by Nitrate, Fluoride, Iron and Arsenic. Most of the times, the villagers are not aware of the adverse impact of poor water quality and keep suffering from its consequences.

According to a World Health Report, water borne diseases form the largest single category of communicable diseases contributing to infant mortality. In India, about 21% of all communicable diseases (11.5% of all diseases) are water borne in nature. Diarrhoea, that is the most prevalent water born disease and is responsible for 25-30% of deaths among children below five years of age. Also, epidemics of infectious hepatitis, food poisoning and typhoid fever are quite common. Though the number of deaths due to water borne diseases has gone down over the years, due to improved health care, incidence of water borne diseases are still very high. Their prevention requires drastic improvement in water quality.  

In order to address the issues concerning energy, water and gender, innumerable number of initiatives have been taken by governments, civil society organizations, academia, corporates and others. There are specific government machineries to look after energy and water security and to take care of gender issues. However, most of these efforts have been sectoral - addressing issues related to either energy or water or gender.  Very few have recognised and appreciated that energy, water and gender issues are very much interlinked and that inefficiencies in one sector leads to cascading effects in the others. It has, therefore, become imperative to address these issues in a holistic manner.

Immense opportunities exist for addressing energy, water and gender issues in a holistic manner.  For example, reliable power from locally available renewable energy resources improves the household environmental quality and vulnerability of women and children to health risks, due to less or marginal dependence on fuelwood for cooking and kerosene for lighting.  Besides, women will also save sufficient time which they would have spent on fuelwood collection. Similarly, drinking water technologies linked to renewable energy would also spare some time for women.  The time thus saved can be utilised for renewable energy based and efficient household level income generating activities. The supplementary income provides economic freedom and empowerment to the women and also helps the family to liberate itself from the clutches of poverty.

Similarly, reliable power from locally available renewable energy at the village level, coupled with community based water management systems, improves the reliability and supply of irrigation water; which is currently severely constrained by the high cost of diesel, the chronic unreliability of grid electricity, or the non availability of water.  Reliable irrigation increases agricultural productivity and food security, with consequent higher volumes of animal fodder and crop residues and increased household incomes.  This, in turn, decreases the stress on grazing lands and forests for fuelwood.  The decreased stress on grazing lands and forests is an essential pre-requisite for sound watershed management and recharging of groundwater resources. Bioenergy-based renewable energy supply also provides the economic incentive for rehabilitating wastelands (often over-stressed grazing lands) as biomass plantations. 

The drudgery of women and children are minimised when fuel and fodder resources are more easily available and accessible.  The effective integration of gender sensitive energy and water management strategies at the community level contribute not only to sustainable livelihoods, but also to an ecosystem integrity that reduces the vulnerability of the communities.  q 

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