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Papers by Sanchita Talukdar

Access to reliably clean water is still an ongoing challenge for Gujarat. Preserving the quality ... more Access to reliably clean water is still an ongoing challenge for Gujarat. Preserving the quality of all water bodies – both surface and groundwater sources – will be critical to ensuring safe drinking water for domestic uses and maintaining sufficiency for economic and agricultural uses in the long run.

This report delineates the pressures of water scarcity on countries during the onset of prolonged... more This report delineates the pressures of water scarcity on countries during the onset of prolonged drought / frequent floods with the objective of highlighting best practices, scalable interventions that integrate uncertainties and risk into the water governance architecture.

Conference Presentations by Sanchita Talukdar

Industrialization is central to generating job opportunities, reducing regional income disparitie... more Industrialization is central to generating job opportunities, reducing regional income disparities and enabling poverty eradication in developing countries like India. Goal-9 of the Sustainable Development Goals resonates to this end by stressing on the achievement of inclusive and sustainable industrialization, promoting innovation and resilient infrastructure. This has far-reaching implications in terms of achieving water security for the highly industrially developed, but naturally water scarce and drought-prone state of Gujarat, located in the western part of India.
The objective of this paper is to review water pollution abatement strategies undertaken through various policies in the Gujarat state. This has been attempted within the background of federal water legislation/laws to protect water resources.T he issue of irreversibility in the quality of surface and groundwater resource of the state, already degraded by water pollution has been addressed.
During the last decade the state has made commendable progress in augmenting water supplies by investing in a comprehensive schema of water works - the Narmada canal network under the Sardar Sarovar Dam, creation of water harvesting structures, construction of check dams with people’s participation etc. Water resource managers of the state, however, point out that the next important challenge for the state is to manage its deteriorating water quality. In 2015, the Central Pollution Board (CPCB) of India reported that out of the 275 critically polluted rivers, 20 flow in Gujarat.
An estimated 800 large scale and 453,339 micro, small and medium industries dot Gujarat’s industrial landscape. A majority of these industries manufacturing chemicals, bulk drugs and pharmaceuticals, dye and dye intermediates, textiles are immensely water polluting. Lack of stringent regulatory environment, poor effluent treatment infrastructure and insufficient financial incentives to adopt water-saving technologies for industries have contributed to water pollution in the state.

In 2010, the then Ministry of Environment and Forests of the Government of India issued a moratorium on six of the critically polluted industrial clusters of the state. The State Pollution Control Board in Gujarat incurred heavy costs for the “clean up” in the form of investments in pollution control technology and updating of monitoring mechanisms in the state. For industries, it led to rising costs leading to greater “regulatory risks” due to water regulation reducing the attractiveness and eventually competitiveness of business. As pollution load from effluent treatment plants fell, the ban on the industrial clusters were lifted eventually. The comprehensive appraisal of the industrial clusters for water pollution, however did not include any concerted “clean up” of the already degraded water bodies.
Sustainable industrialization has a critical role to play in water conservation. The Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change 2014 highlights how industrial symbiosis within SEZ and clusters could be an effective breeding ground of innovative and effective pollution mitigation strategies. To this end, new alternatives using economic instruments such as effluents trading to combat water pollution from industries in India in general and Gujarat in particular has been explored.

Access to reliably clean water is still an ongoing challenge for Gujarat. Preserving the quality ... more Access to reliably clean water is still an ongoing challenge for Gujarat. Preserving the quality of all water bodies – both surface and groundwater sources – will be critical to ensuring safe drinking water for domestic uses and maintaining sufficiency for economic and agricultural uses in the long run.

This report delineates the pressures of water scarcity on countries during the onset of prolonged... more This report delineates the pressures of water scarcity on countries during the onset of prolonged drought / frequent floods with the objective of highlighting best practices, scalable interventions that integrate uncertainties and risk into the water governance architecture.

Industrialization is central to generating job opportunities, reducing regional income disparitie... more Industrialization is central to generating job opportunities, reducing regional income disparities and enabling poverty eradication in developing countries like India. Goal-9 of the Sustainable Development Goals resonates to this end by stressing on the achievement of inclusive and sustainable industrialization, promoting innovation and resilient infrastructure. This has far-reaching implications in terms of achieving water security for the highly industrially developed, but naturally water scarce and drought-prone state of Gujarat, located in the western part of India.
The objective of this paper is to review water pollution abatement strategies undertaken through various policies in the Gujarat state. This has been attempted within the background of federal water legislation/laws to protect water resources.T he issue of irreversibility in the quality of surface and groundwater resource of the state, already degraded by water pollution has been addressed.
During the last decade the state has made commendable progress in augmenting water supplies by investing in a comprehensive schema of water works - the Narmada canal network under the Sardar Sarovar Dam, creation of water harvesting structures, construction of check dams with people’s participation etc. Water resource managers of the state, however, point out that the next important challenge for the state is to manage its deteriorating water quality. In 2015, the Central Pollution Board (CPCB) of India reported that out of the 275 critically polluted rivers, 20 flow in Gujarat.
An estimated 800 large scale and 453,339 micro, small and medium industries dot Gujarat’s industrial landscape. A majority of these industries manufacturing chemicals, bulk drugs and pharmaceuticals, dye and dye intermediates, textiles are immensely water polluting. Lack of stringent regulatory environment, poor effluent treatment infrastructure and insufficient financial incentives to adopt water-saving technologies for industries have contributed to water pollution in the state.

In 2010, the then Ministry of Environment and Forests of the Government of India issued a moratorium on six of the critically polluted industrial clusters of the state. The State Pollution Control Board in Gujarat incurred heavy costs for the “clean up” in the form of investments in pollution control technology and updating of monitoring mechanisms in the state. For industries, it led to rising costs leading to greater “regulatory risks” due to water regulation reducing the attractiveness and eventually competitiveness of business. As pollution load from effluent treatment plants fell, the ban on the industrial clusters were lifted eventually. The comprehensive appraisal of the industrial clusters for water pollution, however did not include any concerted “clean up” of the already degraded water bodies.
Sustainable industrialization has a critical role to play in water conservation. The Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change 2014 highlights how industrial symbiosis within SEZ and clusters could be an effective breeding ground of innovative and effective pollution mitigation strategies. To this end, new alternatives using economic instruments such as effluents trading to combat water pollution from industries in India in general and Gujarat in particular has been explored.