Water: Driving Jobs and Prosperity

Overview

Water security is fundamental for the wellbeing of India’s people and for the country’s development. Water security is fundamental for the wellbeing of India’s people and for the country’s development. Water-dependent sectors contribute roughly half of economic value added and employ nearly 70 percent of India’s workforce. Water is, therefore, not just a resource but a core economic asset - a creator, enabler, and protector of jobs that is central to the economy, food security, and the environment.

India has 18 percent of the world’s people but only 4 percent of its water resources. Rainfall is highly seasonal; nearly 70 percent occurs in just three months. With rising population, per capita water availability has fallen by half since 1970. Some 600 million people face water stress, while the frequency of both floods and droughts is increasing with climate change.

Growing urbanization, rising industrial demand, and climate change are intensifying competition for scarce water resources. By 2050, an additional 416 million people are expected to live in India’s cities, placing enormous pressure on already overstretched municipal water systems.

India’s central and state governments are implementing ambitious programs to expand access to drinking water and sanitation, modernize irrigation, strengthen water infrastructure, and better manage water resources. The next step is to shift from building infrastructure to providing reliable services to the people, using water resources efficiently, and making water utilities more sustainable with stronger governance and financing.

World Bank Support

The World Bank Group (WBG) is supporting India’s efforts to improve its water security as the country seeks to become a fully developed nation by 2047 — Viksit Bharat.

The WBG's engagement is anchored in its Country Partnership Framework for India FY2026–31 and guided by Water Forward, its global water strategy.

The strategy is organized around three pillars — Water for People, Water for Food, and Water for Planet — with the aim of improving water security for 400 million people worldwide by 2030.

India is central to meeting this global ambition. The WBG India program will enhance water security for 100 million people during FY25–30, approximately 25 percent of the global target. 

Water for People

Accelerate universal access to safe drinking water, sanitation, and hygiene

India has made major investments in improving people’s access to drinking water and sanitation through flagship programs such as the Jal Jeevan Mission, AMRUT, and Swachh Bharat.

While the expansion of infrastructure has laid the foundation, the next step is to ensure that citizens receive reliable water supply and sanitation services. To achieve this, water agencies at all levels will need to be professionally managed and made accountable, and regulatory capacity strengthened — especially at the basin and state levels.

Countries such as Indonesia, Cambodia, Brazil, Chile, and Kenya have shown that performance linked incentives, regulation, and financing can transform water services.

In India, the World Bank is helping the country pivot from creating infrastructure to providing reliable, efficient, and customer-oriented services to both rural and urban residents, while strengthening institutions and improving their performance and accountability.

Creating professional service providers: In Shimla, the World Bank supported the Government of Himachal Pradesh to shift the management of the city's water supply from a government department to a professionally governed, autonomous utility - the Shimla Jal Prabandhan Nigam Ltd - with a focus on financial autonomy, metered billing, and accountability. Water quality is now continuously monitored by independent laboratories, cost recovery has improved considerably, and further reforms are underway, offering a replicable model for other Indian cities.

In rural Karnataka, the World Bank helped village-level water supply systems move towards sustainable operations and maintenance. A similar approach in the peri-urban areas of Uttarakhand has provided nearly all households with pressurized water supply for at least 16 hours a day.

Pioneering and scaling 24/7 water supply: Karnataka is undertaking statewide policy reforms in the Water Supply and Sanitation sector. In 2005, with World Bank support, three medium-size cities engaged experienced private operators to demonstrate that continuous, pressurized, 24/7 water supply was achievable in Indian cities. Over the last decade and a half, over 200,000 people in the demonstration zones in these cities have received 24/7 water supply. These cities are now establishing water companies to scale up 24/7 water supply citywide. In rural areas, the World Bank is supporting the state to achieve 24/7 water supply in 500 villages. Overall, WBG-financed water supply initiatives have a big focus on sustainable operations and maintenance.  

Water for Food

Enhancing food production and improving farmer livelihoods

Agriculture consumes 80–90 percent of India’s water - two to three times more than China or Brazil.

Farmers have increasingly turned to groundwater, making it the dominant source of irrigation. However, unsustainable use of groundwater has led to the widespread depletion of this precious resource in many areas.

Both surface and groundwater need to be managed holistically. Upgrading canals, investing in drip irrigation and sprinklers, and deploying digital tools can help farmers get more crop per drop. At the same time, withdrawals need to be capped, groundwater levels need to be monitored regularly through remote sensing, and water resources need to be budgeted on a scheme-wide basis.

The World Bank is supporting India's irrigation modernization agenda across multiple states through a growing portfolio of climate-resilient programs, complementing central government investments.

Providing last mile irrigation services:  In West Bengal, the World Bank helped improve last-mile water delivery to farmers. A key innovation was to bring in independent private irrigation service providers. Performance-based contracts were introduced to help improve water availability, accountability, and operational reliability at the field level.

Promoting efficient use of water: In Haryana, where water-intensive crops such as rice and wheat are dominant, and groundwater depletion is a critical concern, a proposed World Bank-financed program aims to introduce systematic measurement and benchmarking of irrigation performance across the state's command areas. This will help lay the groundwork for more sustainable water management in one of India's most water-stressed agricultural states.

Harnessing digital and innovation:  In Uttar Pradesh — a major producer of rice and sugarcane where water use is two to three times the global average — the aim is to shift to climate-smart, water-efficient farming. Working with the Government of Uttar Pradesh and Microsoft, the 2030 Water Resources Group (WRG) launched AI-powered pilots that integrate satellite imagery, soil health metrics, and real-time weather forecasts to provide farmers with tailored guidance on irrigation, fertilizer application, and pest management.

Advancing climate resilient irrigation: In Bihar and Haryana, the World Bank is supporting new programs that modernize irrigation, make it climate resilient, strengthen water storage, improve flood and drought management, and provide support to farmers in increasingly variable climate conditions.

Water for Planet

Reducing the risk of floods and droughts and sustainably managing water

Dams help manage floods and droughts. Today, however, 300 of India’s 5,000 large dams are over a hundred years old and many have slipped into the ‘high hazard’ category.

Since 2012, the World Bank has supported India’s efforts to strengthen its large dams, making India one of the world’s first countries to do so.

• Upgrading dam safety and management: The World Bank has helped India improve dam management by deploying state-of-the-art technology and introducing higher safety standards.  New guidelines are helping dam managers deal with changing weather patterns and their knowledge is being upgraded.
• Building flood and drought resilience through grey, green, and digital solutions: The World Bank is supporting states including Assam, Karnataka, and Bihar in strengthening resilience to floods and droughts through a combination of grey and green solutions — from river embankments and drainage systems to nature-based flood management.
• Digital innovations: In Bangalore, the World Bank is enabling city planners to simulate flood scenarios and design more targeted and effective mitigation measures. These programs emphasize coordination across agencies and jurisdictions within river basins, as flood and drought risk management requires integrated action beyond individual states or sectors.

Rejuvenating rivers and helping manage water resources nationwide

India has instituted many programs to rejuvenate its rivers, including the Ganga river which sustains over 500 million people in its vast basin. The country can now build on these programs by bringing them under basin-wide frameworks and coordinating the management of land and water resources through Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM).

Cleaning the Ganga and leveraging private capital for pollution reduction: The World Bank is supporting India's flagship initiative - the Namami Gange program — that aims to restore the health of the Ganga river system. The program takes a comprehensive river basin management approach, addressing environmental flows, water quality and pollution reduction in an integrated manner. A key innovation has been attracting private capital into pollution reduction and ensuring that water treatment plants work sustainably. The experience is helping India develop a model for healthy river management that can be applied to other major river systems in the country.

Building a national data backbone for water management: India's water management was long hampered by fragmented, inaccessible, and often manually collected data, making it difficult to plan effectively across river basins or respond rapidly to floods and droughts. The World Bank-supported National Hydrology Project built a nationwide, automated, real-time water monitoring and information system that covers surface water, groundwater, water quality, and meteorology. This enables flood forecasting, reservoir operations, and river basin planning. The results have exceeded expectations: over 119,000 hydro-meteorological monitoring stations are now integrated with the national platform, and more than 18 states have established or are strengthening State Water Informatics Centers.

Mobilizing Private Expertise and Capital

India’s water sector needs significant investment. Urban water infrastructure alone will require an estimated $150 billion over the next 15 years, alongside major investments in water storage, irrigation, and flood management.

However, the sector remains heavily dependent on government transfers. User fees are often too low to cover even operations and maintenance, constraining service delivery and limiting the utilities’ ability to attract commercial financing.

The World Bank Group is working with the Government of India to help change how the sector is financed — by helping state clients leverage scarce resources to crowd in private investment and commercial finance. In Maharashtra, for example, the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation (IFC) are supporting the state to expand access to safely managed water supply and sanitation services by strengthening commercial management alongside investments — allowing cities and urban local bodies to mobilize private capital and improve operational performance through bond financing and public-private partnerships. The initiative is also expanding the reuse of treated wastewater for industrial and commercial purposes, reducing pressure on freshwater resources while supporting the state’s policy on 30 percent reuse.

The World Bank and IFC are also helping strengthen financial sustainability of water agencies. This requires ring-fencing utility accounts, predictable budgeting, tariff reform, performance-linked public financing, and innovative PPP models. India’s deep technical and technological expertise presents major opportunities to scale private participation in operations, efficiency, and investment.

Looking Ahead

The models being developed and tested in India are not only transforming services for millions of Indians but are generating knowledge and experience that can inform water sector reform across the developing world. The World Bank Group remains committed to deepening its partnership with India, helping to scale what works, mobilize the financing needed, and support India in achieving water security for all its citizens.

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