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Abstract
Based on research in peri-urban areas, this paper explores questions of water justice in the context of emerging global cities. With the growth of large cities, authorities focus on meeting their water needs through infrastructure expansion and supply augmentation. The changing water needs and priorities of peri-urban locations, which provide land and water for urban expansion, receive scant attention. This paper looks at changing patterns of water use between rural and urban uses, based on research in peri-urban Gurgaon, an emerging outsourcing and recreation hub of North West India. It describes the diversity of ways in which peri-urban residents lose access to water as the city expands. These processes raise important questions about water justice, about the politics of urban expansion, and the implicit biases about whom these cities are meant for.
Notes
1. I deliberately focus on the urban–rural/peri-urban relationships here. I am aware that intra-village equity issues are huge and show complex emergent patterns of both threats to livelihoods and exclusions, as well as new opportunities. This would, however, require a separate paper.
2. Northwest India has two cropping seasons: rabi (winter season) and kharif (monsoon season). The rabi crop is harvested around April and the kharif crop around November.
3. 1 acre = 0.25 hectare.
4. The Sultanpur National Park was developed in 1972 to preserve the region's rich bird-life.
5. These farm-houses serve as weekend and recreational getaways for the urban elite. They are used for hosting social get-togethers and parties.
6. In practice, this is more than the groundwater strictly beneath the land. It depends on the pumping capacity and could mean drawing water from beneath neighbouring lands.
7. A recent norm requires registration of all new groundwater structures. In a neighbouring village, the village headman received a notification that a new tubewell was being dug by a farm-house owner. When he approached the owner, he was threatened and told that the owner “would take care of the matter”.
8. However, in 2000, the use of these tubewells was discontinued because of high fluoride content. The National Park got connected to a canal-based irrigation source, the Gurgaon Water Supply Channel, that meets the drinking water needs of most of the city.
9. The farm-houses, right from the time they came up, extract water using submersible pumpsets. Among farmers and the peri-urban residents, the switch to submersible pumpsets was relatively recent: with the fall in water tables becoming steep, since 2005.
10. Small hamlet or settlement located away from the main village settlement area.
11. This salinity is on account of geological factors. At one time, salt pans were widespread near the village and constituted an important economic activity for the residents of neighbouring Sultanpur.
12. The rainth is an irrigation technology operated by a bullock.
13. Manually operated pulley.
14. Occupational diversification also entails new opportunities for peri-urban households, even those who lose out in land- and water-related processes. This multidimensional character of the changes makes it difficult to generalise in terms of justice.
15. Peri-urban residents regularly set their irrigation apparatus and go off to attend to other activities. Their physical presence is not required for irrigation. This promotes occupational diversification by releasing time for other economic activities, and encourages the youth to attend college while water oozes out from the sprinklers back home.
16. At the time of this research, 50 Indian rupees were equivalent to 1 US dollar.
17. Ecological footprint is a measure of the human demands on the earth's ecosystem. The concept was coined by Rees (Citation1992).
18. Chandu is the name of a village adjoining Budheda.
19. One lakh is one hundred thousand.
20. Note that land acquisitions by the state are compulsory. The price at which the state acquires land is normally between a third and a fourth below the market price (Narain Citation2009a).
21. Gurgaon city presently gets water through Gurgaon Water Supply Channel, which originates from village Kakroi in district Sonepat and culminates at village Basai in Gurgaon. This channel has been recently upgraded to carry 175 cusecs instead of 100 cusecs of water earlier. An expenditure of Rs 19.63 crores has been incurred on this to meet the drinking water demand of the growing population of Gurgaon.
22. Its off-take point is the Delhi branch RD 22, 780RD of the Western Yamuna Canal and discharge at head is 175 cusecs. Its depth is 6.55 feet and the total length is 69.385 km.
23. This work has been undertaken at a cost of Rs 225 crores; the NCR channel would have a capacity of 800 cusecs of water and a major portion of it would be for Gurgaon.
24. The water table level is 50–100 feet in some places and 9–10 feet in some other places.
25. One pipe usually serves about 15–20 acres of land.
26. Both are village record keepers.
27. This was an average number. When the water level in the parent canal is high, the discharge increases and the time required to irrigate decreases.
28. See e.g. IWMI (Citation2003), Feenstra et al. (Citation2000) and WII/IWMI (Citation2006).
29. “Vulnerability” – popularised by the climate change discourse – is often used to draw attention to specific contextual factors that influence exposure and the capacity to respond to change, to explain how and why groups and individuals experience negative outbreaks from shocks and stressors (Leichenko and O'Brien Citation2002). The concept captures the changing nature of risks and variable capacity to cope with risk and change (Kirby Citation2006).
30. Locally called a gundah nullah (Hindi: sewer).
31. This was an important reason for some villagers to sell land to the corporate giant Reliance for development of an SEZ.
32. Note that de-linking land rights and water rights is not a solution, as this might contribute to turning water into a free, tradable commodity.