Making best uses of water resources

In Bangladesh, about 88 per cent of water is used in agriculture, 10 per cent for domestic use and the remaining 2.0 per cent in the industrial sector, according to UN statistics. Irrigation forms the lion's share of water use in agriculture.  For this purpose, supply of electricity to agriculture is about 4.0 per cent (Source:  UN World Water Day 2014 supplement by the Water Resource Ministry).  For irrigation, pumping of water requires a significant amount of electricity. So for using water, energy is one of the important ingredients. Both water and energy have equal importance for efficient use of our resources. Industries suffer due to shortage of both energy and water.
Rationalisation of water use for industries has not been discussed much. Water is one of the cheapest resources used there. In order to remove anomalies, policy analysis for fixation of rational prices of water needs to be done carefully.
There is a separate ministry to regulate water resources and different departments/ organisations work for managing distribution of water. The slogan of this year's World Water Day, observed on March 22, was: 'World Water Day 2014: The Water-Energy Nexus'. Sometimes water itself is called energy and sometimes it helps generate energy. It was reported that Bangladesh is going to frame the Bangladesh Delta Plan 2100 which will cover 100 years. The Plan's objectives would be to maximise use of water and its best distribution for socio-economic development of the country.
Some sectors, like leather, use huge water. Washing, dyeing and finishing (WDF) firms are also producing products at the cost of easily available and relatively less costly water resources. The International Finance Corporation (IFC), with the support from the Netherlands government, launched the Bangladesh Water PaCT: Partnership for Cleaner Textile in January 2013. The programme aims to initially support factories in specific geographic clusters to reduce their water footprint through: (a) cleaner production practices, (b) improved water resource management awareness and systems, and (c) investments in technologies that significantly reduce water consumption and effluent. Over the course of time, it is anticipated that such practices will be adopted beyond these clusters to cover the entire industry and perhaps be replicated in other industries across the country.
A textile sustainability platform has been planned to gather stakeholders' opinion in which both representatives of public and private sectors have been included. Four working groups are already working for charting out affordable policies for industries. The Business Initiative Leading Development (BUILD), as an integral part, is working with the system to put forward its opinions in different consultation sessions.
The programme requires ownership, support and participation of a wide range of stakeholders in the country. It is envisioned that support and feedback from stakeholders will add great value to the strategic direction of the project.  As such, stakeholder engagement will help create a modern, clean, efficient and fair textile manufacturing sector in the country by helping address important questions about the true cost of water resources for factories. It will also create opportunities for industries to reduce costs and thus reduce consumption of water, energy, and chemicals. What actions, including policy interventions, are required to convert these opportunities into real benefits to the industries?
Textile is one of the large industries in the country. It contributes about 80 per cent of exports and employs more than four million people. Most of the workers are semi-skilled women for whom employment was almost impossible in other sectors. Statistics say, with over 1,700 washing, dyeing and finishing units consuming 1,500 billion litres of groundwater annually and discharging waste water, the sector impacts the lives of more than 12 million of Dhaka's inhabitants through seasonal water shortage.
PRI STUDY REPORT: In view of environmental sustainability and legal provisions, a study was recently done by the Policy Research Institute (PRI). It highlights environmental sustainability of the ready-made garment (RMG) sector, mapping of legal and regulatory issues with an assessment of legal and regulatory coverage and gaps, quality of laws, regulations and rules. It is aimed at recommending some safe landing zones for suitable policy prescriptions by citing examples of different countries.
The report touches upon some other issues like institutional responsibilities and enforcement, willingness of the private sector to comply with, pollution report of water use in general and water pollution in particular, etc. While citing scenarios of water use of some comparative countries, it gives examples of India and China, their pricing systems, rules, policies, etc. The report also mentions about the positive side of cost of adopting best practices for cleaner production which the report believes are quite affordable.
Weak enforcement of rules and regulations, weak inspection and insufficient number of inspectors of the WASA have been identified as some of the reasons for wastage of water. Flawed water pricing, weak effluent treatment plant (ETP) enforcement, outdated approach to measuring pollution levels and quality control of ETP discharge are some other problems afflicting this sector.
In Section 7 of the Environment Conservation Rules (ECR) 1997 and also in the Industrial Policy 2010, it is mentioned that industrial units under Orange A & B and under Red categories must have their ETPs constructed before certificates of operations are to be issued to these firms. Fabric washing firms are listed under Orange B category and fabric dyeing and chemical processing firms are listed under Red category. While ECR 97 clearly states that all wet processing and washing and dyeing firms must install ETPs, enactment of an ETP Establishment Act is in process.
It is true that ETP establishment is a must, especially for the WDF firms. But it is also true that cost involvement of running an ETP is huge which will add to the production cost. If it is not affordable for the firms, only monitoring, metering and price fixation may not improve the situation. Most urgent need is to ensure efficiency in respect of using technology and energy so that cost of using technology/resource can gradually be reduced. For an example, for an individual industry, running a gas-based generator without maximising the use of raw materials (e.g. gas, water and coal), production of electricity is not economic. By using 100 units of gas, a generator produces 30 units of electricity which may not be affordable and will ultimately increase cost of production. As costs of these raw materials (gas, water etc) are comparatively less, energy efficiency is not high. The government should extend policy support to entrepreneurs to be technology/energy/resource-efficient.
Regularisation of inspection process without maintenance of appropriate data or with inferred data would be weak. This will not be ultimately helpful for reducing energy use.  Regulatory bindings may not be always helpful in maintaining ETP operation in industries. ETP is a complicated issue and its operational cost is much higher than that of the penalty introduced for this purpose. Entrepreneurs may opt for even penalty rather than operating costly ETP.
Isolated ETP can not be effective because of many reasons. Chemical neutralisation cost for a single ETP would be much higher than that of a common ETP. In this respect, long-term planning is required. A single entrepreneur establishing a number of industries in a single place may be encouraged to install ETP for its own use. Policy incentives in that respect can be helpful.
For running an ETP, the appointment of an energy manager should be made mandatory. The post of an energy auditor is an essential one. Data recording is important for an efficient ETP operation. MRV (Measuring, Recording and Verification) is an important exercise to make these types of process effective. In case of considering water management issues throughout the country, we will have to take note of the fact that industrial and commercial users mostly have their own connection of deep tube wells after having required permission from the concerned authorities. Responsibilities of these users can be ensured during their time of permission.
In case of agriculture, we have allowed a large number of deep tube wells for irrigation. Some organisations like the Bangladesh Agricultural Development Corporation (BADC) and the Rural Electrification Bopard (REB) also use a significant quantity of water. Some statistics say that water level of Dhaka has gone down 480 feet. Unlimited use of water in any sector may cause deficit for others. We need to plan in such a way that precious natural resources can have maximum use considering the issue as a whole, not on a piecemeal basis.
In China, water treatment cost is 5-10 times higher than ours. It practises differential water pricing based on location. Depending on industrial concentration, price discrimination can be examined. In order to make industries responsible, we should educate them to utilise resources in such a way that maximisation of use of these resources can be ensured. In this respect, sector-specific energy consumption rates based on their production requirements can be calculated.  A sort of flat rate based on the industry-specific needs, as practised in India, could give a good result.
The ministry of water resources should strengthen its regulatory provisions of ground water monitoring. Dhaka and Chittagong WASA should review their licensing arrangements for large commercial and industrial customers.
For security reasons and protecting the future generations, we need to take preparations from now. We should count water as an important energy source.

The writer is CEO, Business Initiative Leading Development (BUILD).
 ceo@buildbd.org