Item — HN Reader

How did India's water usage reforms fail?

I've been in Egypt and India - they aren't that different, and it's Indian companies that are working on and helping financing these megaprojects in Egypt via the credit line established after the pandemic [0] and it's Indian companies like Wabag that are implementing water treatment projects in Egypt [1].

[0] - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-06-12/egypt-say...

[1] - https://www.arabnews.com/node/2130826/middle-east

2 comments

India uses something like a quarter of the world's groundwater. 20 years ago, it was all open channels, which lose 40-80% of water due to evaporation and seepage. Mexico and Egypt fixed this decades ago.

Nowadays, farmers have shifted to directly using groundwater, and just pump as much water as possible from wells (thus depleting them). This is exacerbated by: 1) Relying on flood irrigation (ie just let water flow across the field and evaporate, vs drip) 2) As temperatures rise, using even more water

The situation was already pretty dire, and despite various efforts, it's getting much worse.

https://fse.fsi.stanford.edu/news/indian-groundwater-depleti...

Do these Indian companies implement things in India?

Yes, you may have to update your knowledge on the insane infrastructure boom going on in India right now.

And, they aren't doing in sustainable way, worst than China.

Yes, but they are building up a bunch of companies that can do complex infrastructure work from soup to nuts. One step at a time.

Yes. And they're the same companies that were contracted and subcontracted infrastructure across the Khaleej and ASEAN.

Larsen & Toubro, Wabag, SP Group, EIL, Afcons, and others tend to have a chokehold on implementing and executing these kinds of projects in MENA because they co-finance projects with Gulf capital players who tend to have capital stakes in these Indian players as well.