Water Pollution and Abatement Policy in India

Water is one of the fundamental natural resources on which the sustenance of society depends. Decades of economic and industrial growth have resulted in lifestyles that increase the demands on water resources simultaneous with increases in water pollution levels. The availability and the quality of the freshwater resources are the most pressing of the many environmental challenges in India. On the other hand, wastewater is one of the main causes of irreversible ecosystem degradation. It calls for proper measures. This chapter provides a discussion on the link between environment and development and deals with the problem of water pollution and development. An accounting of water resources with consumption and availability has been offered for India. A brief review of literature primarily covering the effects of water pollution, water quality indices, and wastewater treatment is presented. A gap in the literature is also identified. Finally, this chapter highlights the outline of this book and the objective.

Due to trade liberalization especially after the 1990s, all emerging Asian countries are affected to some extent with environmental pollution. Wastewater generation primarily depends on the treatment strategies, and some countries have already taken reasonable measures to wipe out the problem while others not. This chapter primarily reviews the status of water pollution in India and other Asian countries. What are the major sources of water pollution and impacts in these countries? China, as the largest economy among the regions observed, reported the most pollution, at 8.82 million kg/day in 2006, eclipsing BOD emissions from the other Asian countries. Agriculture is the major contributor of nonpoint source pollution of surface water and groundwater worldwide. The excessive use of fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides, and defoliants and the resulting water quality degradation are responsible for health problems. Among industrial pollution, the largest contributor of BOD emission is the textile industry followed by the food industry in developing Asia. The former is especially important in the case of India because textile is one of the major export industries in the country. Although environmental awareness in the industrial sector has increased, enforcement of regulations is difficult and pollution continues to rise as the region is dominated by small- and medium-scale industries. Several countries are implementing large-scale and ambitious programs to restore degraded water resources. The enforcement of water quality is particularly difficult in emerging economies, where institutional capacities do not keep pace with rapid industrialization.

This chapter formulates the model based on input–output framework. A pollution model is developed to capture the generation of water pollution from different industrial activities. It estimates both direct and indirect water pollution content of different economic activities. The model is further extended to incorporate pollution abatement cost and its impacts on output and prices of the economy.

This chapter provides the data from various sources and discusses the processing of data. The major data required for the work are the input–output table of India, the different types of water pollutants generated by the different industries of India, and the abatement cost for various water-polluting industries. The study has used the input–output table of India for the year 2006–2007 recently prepared by the CSO (Input-output transaction table 2006–2007. Central Statistical Organisation, Ministry of Programme and Implementation, Government of India, 2011). The input–output table of 2006–2007 consists of 130*130 sectors. For our study, the table has been aggregated to 38 sectors. From the publications of the Central Pollution Control Board and various other water pollution information sources, ten types of water pollution parameters are identified which are being discharged by the different industries. These are suspended solids (SS), dissolved solids (DS), chloride, sulfide, zinc, phenol oil and grease, biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), chemical oxygen demand (COD), and other pollutants such as nitrogen, chromium, cyanide, alkalinity, etc. A large number of industries do not conduct systematic record of effluent. However, we are able to collect the pollution data for 31 sectors. We have estimated the abatement cost for the treatment of water pollution for each individual sector. Due to the paucity of the cost data, we could collect the data for 16 sectors. The issue with data limitation is also discussed in this chapter.

This chapter reports the result based on the model calibrated in Chap. 3. It analyzes the results on direct and indirect water pollution requirement, water pollution content of the total final demand of different sectors of India, and effects of pollution abatement costs on output and prices of different goods and services. The results show that the amount of total pollution generation per unit of the product is significantly higher for all industries compared to the direct pollution generation coefficient. Significant numbers of industries (livestock, chemical, beverages, leather, cotton textiles, miscellaneous textile, paper, and milk and milk products) in India are producing water pollution above MINAS by several times. The pollution abatement activities involve costs which, in turn, will affect the price and output of different industries. To analyze the effect of these costs, a clean water sector is added to the economy.

This chapter further computes the new set of output and prices due to the implementation of the clean water sector into the economy and identifies the most effected sector. The analysis shows that the demand for the output of all the different sectors has changed and the price of all the sectors has increased. We find that chemical, mining, and electricity are key sectors which have extensive linkages in the demand for clean water. Any shift in cost has an effect on prices. Since many industries are affected by the cost of purchased intermediate goods and services, prices have also risen unevenly across the economy. The pattern of final consumption has also been affected. Final consumers, that is, the households, ultimately bear the burden of pollution generation, either through a price increase – due to production of clean water or tax imposed by the government on producers – or health treatment cost when pollution is not treated. This chapter also identifies the total amount of different types of pollution in the total final demand and its different components for the industries. The total coefficients as derived in this chapter provide policy makers with one way of assuming the impact of alternative environmental management strategies on pollution generation.

The interrelationship between trade and the environment has become a pressing concern across the globe. Its nature varies from country to country, sector to sector, and firm to firm. This chapter investigates the two controversial hypotheses in the trade and environment literature, known as pollution haven and factor endowment using water pollution parameters for India for the year 2006–2007. The result reveals that India is exporting more water pollution-intensive goods, while importing less. Therefore, India is pollution heaven particularly for a number of water pollution parameters (dissolved solids, chloride, sulfide, BOD, and COD for the year 2006–2007). On the other hand, the result based on Leontief and Leamer approaches for the factor endowment hypothesis reveals that India is exporting labor-intensive goods and importing capital-intensive goods. This chapter attempts to explain these results with regard to the composition of exports and imports. Thus, the findings of water pollution content in India’s trade with the ROW have thrown further insight on trade and environment debate.

It is widely known that command and control measures do not provide necessary incentives to polluters for the choice of least cost methods of pollution control. The Government of India has so far resorted only to such measures for controlling industrial pollution in India. On the other hand, fiscal instruments, such as pollution taxes or marketable pollution permits, provide incentives to factories for adopting least cost pollution abatement technologies. There have been no serious attempts in India to use such instruments for the abatement of industrial pollution. This chapter attempts several experiments based on alternative set of instruments developed by the authors. We have suggested two pollution abatement policies and evaluated the impact of these policies on output and prices. This study could estimate the abatement cost for selected industries. It is assumed that if the existing industries having CETP or ETP could maintain the standards, then the total abatement cost will increase. This additional cost to achieve the standards can be treated as pollution tax. These pollution tax rates will be different for different industries. This additional cost borne by the selected industries will have an impact on the whole economy. Another scenario, based on the total pollution tax for selected industries, which is 0.76 % of gross value added for India for the year 2006–2007, is imposed on all the sectors. Although the tax rate was the same, the volume of tax was different across sectors because of the differences in value added. We received a similar pattern of changes in both outputs and prices for both policies in some sectors, namely, inorganic and organic chemicals, electricity, mining, sugar, and cotton textile. We have also calculated the future load of water pollution in the context of India’s growth strategy which will be useful to the policy makers and academic community. Three different growth rates have been applied to calculate the future impact on the Indian economy at the end of current 12th Five-Year Plan. Analysis reveals that water pollution-generating sectors will grow rapidly, though the abatement activities will continue to increase the output of clean water sector. In this context, we have also computed the total volume of pollution across the ten identified water pollutants. It is observed from the study that the whole economy will be affected due to pollution control.

Growing pressures on the environment and an increasing environmental awareness have generated the need to account for the manifold interactions between all sectors of the economy and the environment. Natural resource accounting (NRA) is a necessary step to measure sustainability of development. It provides indicators of loss of natural resources, changes in environmental quality, and their consequence for long-term economic development. Green GDP is simply a conventional gross domestic product figures adjusted for the environmental costs of economic activities. This chapter measures the environmentally adjusted domestic product as well as welfare loss for India due to water pollution following the SEEA framework. We have considered health hazards, damages to crops, and defensive expenditure to arrive at green GDP estimate in India for the year 2006–2007. The defensive expenditure in this study is the cost of wastewater treatment, while damages to crops are the loss of agricultural output due to soil erosion and land degradation. Several scenarios attempted to calculate the loss in terms of net domestic product. It ranges from 3.56 to 3.91 % according to various estimates. With the implementation of pollution control policies, the loss in NDP is marginally less (varies from 3.50 to 3.79 %) than the regular EDP estimates. If other natural resources are accounted for, then the situation is expected to be worse.

This chapter reviews a number of case studies across the different states in India. It includes textile, pharmaceuticals, and paints industry from West Bengal; textile and dye industry in Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu; sugar industry in Maharashtra; pulp and paper industry in northern India; and tannery industry in Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. From these case studies, we find that different industries have adopted different measures depending on their capacity. These case studies provide further insight regarding the implementation of common effluent treatment plant (CETP) and effluent treatment plant (ETP). The findings from the West Bengal studies reveal that measures to control water pollutants by setting up ETP in five industries have been successful. While the experiences from leather industry in North and South India show similar results where both have used CETP to control water pollution, a typical cluster of pulp and paper industry in Northern India shows the feasibility of ETP compared to that of CETP. In general, the performance of CETPs has been found to be very unsatisfactory largely because of poor operation and maintenance.

This chapter summarizes the study and draws some major conclusions. The study provides several interesting findings which should be taken into consideration by academicians and policy makers. An important finding indicates that policy makers should note that the total pollution coefficients should be considered as alternative environmental management strategies and not just direct pollution coefficient. Water pollution abatement activities will have a significant impact on the Indian economy, leading to the expansion of output and increasing prices. While the increase in output is beneficial to the economy, consumers will be affected severely due to the price increase. Moreover, the industries will likely lose their competitive advantage due to the price rise of the outputs from both buyers and sellers end.

The pollution content in the foreign trade of India also reveals significant result. For an emerging economy like India, trade sector plays an important role in generating GDP and employment. The current attempt signifies that as the Indian economy is more export oriented after 1991 policy reforms, the exporting industries such as cotton textiles are of serious concern because an emphasis on export growth of cotton textile will likely to create more water pollution. Another important finding from the estimates of EDP due to water pollution shows a significant reduction in NDP due to the degradation of water resources. This study strongly suggests that if other natural resources could be accounted, then NDP reduction would be greater. Several policy options based on command and control and economic instruments have been evaluated critically.