ALWAR, India, Dec 26 – Foreign companies operating in India have long grappled with complex regulations and confusing tax laws.
In the northwestern state of Rajasthan, some of the world’s biggest beverage firms face the additional challenge of securing and managing dwindling water supplies while navigating strict government rules and grievances of some local people who only get the resource piped-in once a week.
Nearly two-thirds of Rajasthan is covered by the Thar Desert, and its groundwater extraction ranks among the highest in India, adding to the economic pressures for the state in balancing the needs of its 85 million people, booming tourism business, industry and its big agricultural sector.
Laws in India, the world’s most populous nation, bar the movement of liquor across state borders without a special permit, effectively forcing companies to set up production in every state they want to sell in despite the water scarcity. So global giants like Diageo, Carlsberg and Heineken have to maintain factories in Rajasthan if they want to distribute their products in the state.
“(Water stress) is a growing issue in India,” said Sonia Thimmiah, senior director of global sustainability at Heineken, the market leader, adding that a few years ago, water demand in some cities had come close to exceeding supply.
Heineken, Carlsberg and Diageo said that they are increasing water efficiency in Rajasthan and other water-stressed regions, have worked to improve communities’ access to water and aimed to replenish 100% of the water their factories use back to its source.
The challenges for the brewers in Rajasthan mirror a wider crisis across India, which holds 17% of the world’s population but just 4% of its freshwater. As the world’s fastest-growing major economy, India’s thirst for growth means more production and more strain on its scarce water resources.
The strain is evident in Rajasthan’s industrial town of Alwar, about 150 km (100 miles) southwest of Delhi, where most of the beverage companies are centred. The wider Alwar district’s groundwater extraction, driven mainly by irrigation, runs at nearly twice the rate its aquifers can recharge, government data shows.
Industry users consume just about 2% of Rajasthan’s water, but under Indian law, all industrial and commercial entities seeking groundwater extraction have to install on-site rainwater harvesting and aquifer recharge systems.
In areas such as Alwar that the government classifies as “over-exploited” for groundwater, industries are further required to adopt the “latest water efficient technologies so as to reduce dependence on groundwater resources”, a government order said in 2020, without specifying details.
“The water tables are declining and rains are variable,” Diageo’s Alwar head Sumit Walia told Reuters.
“We have a vision to reduce water consumption by 40% and to ensure that whatever water is withdrawn from the ground, 100% replenishment is there. We are recycling 100% of the wastewater and installing advanced technologies which consume less water”, like using air to rinse bottles instead of water, he said.
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