Water Conservation Technologies
India faces three simultaneous water crises: overexploited groundwater, less than 3% domestic water reuse, and drip irrigation coverage of just 7–8%. Mature technologies exist for each of these problems at TRL 8+. What is missing is the framework that maps the right technology to the right problem — and the policy mechanism to deploy it at scale. CRID is building both.
The Problem
The gap CRID is closing.
India's water challenge is not a technology problem — it is a coordination problem. Drip irrigation covers only 7–8% of agricultural land despite technology that is proven, commercially available, and cost-effective. Domestic water reuse stands below 3%, despite decentralised sewage treatment plants that could transform that figure. Groundwater depletion continues unchecked. The gap is not the absence of solutions — it is the absence of a unified framework that matches the right technology to the right problem, and a government mechanism to drive adoption.
CRID's Approach
How we're building this.
CRID is mapping India's mature water conservation technologies — those at TRL 8 or above — to specific sector problems: drip and micro-irrigation for agriculture, decentralised sewage treatment for urban wastewater reuse, zero liquid discharge for industrial water management. The output is a technology-to-problem matching framework that governments can act on directly. CRID then advocates for a ratchet mechanism: strategic subsidisation at the outset, with gradually tightening mandates that make adoption the path of least resistance for every sector.
Expected Impact
What changes when this lands.
A deployed water conservation framework would reduce groundwater depletion across India's most overexploited aquifers, bring drip irrigation to scale across agricultural states — protecting food security and farmer income — and enable urban wastewater reuse at a level that reduces freshwater demand across Indian cities. The technology to achieve this already exists. The policy architecture to deploy it does not — yet.
Next Program
🗺️India's First Industrial Heat Map