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Comment by a34729t | Hacker News Reader

To be fair, Egypt and Mexico made major reforms to their water usage in the past and succeeded. Compared to India, which failed abjectly.

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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

Do these Indian companies implement things in India?

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.

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.

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...

India relies on groundwater and its strategy has been to use the monsoons to replenish the groundwater under the Jal Shakti Abhyan. The monsoons come like clockwork so it’s a solid strategy.

No, it is deeply stupid strategy, because groundwater is being depleted much faster than it can be replenished:

"We reviewed 160 journal articles, along with supplementary data and reports from GW, agriculture, and meteorological authorities. Our focus was on GW depletion in India, with particular emphasis on GRACE satellite data, in situ observations, and the influence of hydrogeological conditions, anthropogenic activities, and climatic disturbances. GRACE observations reveal significant depletion, particularly in Eastern Uttar Pradesh at 7 cm/yr rate from 2002 to 2022, while localized in situ data highlight Punjab as the most rapidly depleting area, with a rate of 46 cm/yr (2003–2012)."*

*https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S23528...

It is clearly not working. Groundwater in India is being drained faster than it is being replenished. Wells have gone so deep that people are now worried about heavy metals like arsenic.

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