Designed scarcity: Why carrying your own water bottle is now a political act

Stepping out with a reusable bottle often invites amused glances and well-meaning advice: “Why burden yourself?” or “Just buy one — Rs 10 or Rs 20 only”. Beneath this casual logic lies a troubling assumption: That basic human needs are less valuable than the comforts of a consumer-driven lifestyle, and that water, once part of the commons, has been neatly transformed into a commodity to be purchased on demand.

The irony becomes almost theatrical in restaurants and hotels, where “natural” drinking water has quietly vanished from menus, replaced by an obligation to buy branded bottles at extra cost. In one such instance, widely reported in national newspapers recently, a hotel refused to serve potable water and insisted that a customer purchase bottled water instead in Faridabad. The matter reached the courts, which directed the establishment to compensate the customer Rs 3,000, a token sum, perhaps, but a sharp reminder that water, despite multinational capitalism’s best marketing efforts, remains a necessity rather than a luxury to be sold by hook or by crook.

And the final joke, of course, is on the consumer: The same Rs 10-20 bottle sold at a dusty roadside stall magically multiplies in price the moment it enters a “classy” setting without any justification other than the artificial scarcity created in the first place. Progress, it seems, now comes chilled, sealed and overpriced.

Access to safe drinking water is an internationally recognised human right. The Constitution of India recognises access to clean drinking water as a fundamental right as part of the right to life under Article 21. Yet, nationwide, only 6 per cent of urban households have access to safe piped drinking water, resulting in millions to rely on filters or alternative sources according to a study by Local Circles.

The Composite Water Management Index (CWMI) Report 2018 by NITI Aayog highlighted the severity of India’s water crisis, stating that nearly 200,000 people lose their lives each year due to inadequate access to safe water. India’s water crisis is not limited to scarcity alone, deteriorating water quality poses an equally serious threat to public health and sustainability.

Cities like Delhi, Bengaluru and Chennai are facing serious problems with water, both in terms of insufficient supply and declining quality. Mumbai, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Pune, Kolkata and Indore are just a few of the Indian cities that have been classified as experiencing water scarcity as a result of diminishing supplies, excessive groundwater extraction, and rising demand.

Water quality and public health are further compromised in a number of these cities due to contaminated sources and drinking water. The water crisis is not just confined to developing countries; it has become a truly global challenge. Over 4 billion people experience severe water scarcity each year, according to the UN, and if current trends continue, demand is expected to surpass sustainable availability by 40 per cent by 2030.

Population expansion, urbanisation and agriculture are no longer the only factors causing this widening disparity between supply and demand; increased industrial activity and the quick development of digital infrastructure are also contributing factors. While agriculture continues to represent the most significant share of global freshwater withdrawals close to 70 per cent, the increasing pressure from industrial and especially digital infrastructures is becoming ever more apparent, particularly with the rapid recent growth in data centres, cloud computing and AI.

The global data centre industry alone consumes upwards of 560 billion litres of water annually; the majority used for cooling and keeping servers at optimal operating conditions. According to projections from the International Energy Agency, this could increase as high as 1,200 billion litres by 2030, powered by exponential growth in AI workloads, automation and other digital services.

The water footprint of individual facilities further underlines the intensity of this demand: A single 100-MW hyperscale data centre can consume around 2.5 billion litres of water annually, the equivalent of the yearly domestic requirements of roughly 80,000 people.

In light of this accelerating trend, certain major technology firms have begun disclosing more detailed information. In a report by the UK government, the following was emphasised: "Hyperscale data centres at the vanguard of artificial intelligence innovations reported large year-over-year increases in water use. In 2022, Microsoft reported global water use related to its business operations increased by 34 per cent to total 6.4 million cubic meters. In the same period, water use by Google's data centres reached 19.5 million cubic meters, a 20 per cent increase from the previous year.”

No wonder that although climate change is reshaping rainfall patterns, intensifying droughts and accelerating glacier melt, but water scarcity is also driven by how the capitalist global system consumes and reallocates natural resources. As water is increasingly diverted towards industrial production, energy generation and digital automation, the burden of scarcity falls disproportionately on farmers, the urban poor and fragile ecosystems. The water crisis, therefore, is not merely a climatic or technical problem but a socio-economic and political one.

However, the contradiction no longer relates to practical reality in the modern setting, as water is more contained, commodified and channelled toward capital accumulation, especially to sustain digital and AI infrastructures.

Scarcity raises important issues about power, distribution and the monetisation of necessary resources, since it is deliberately created by political and economic decisions rather than just being a result of natural restrictions.

Trishna Sarkar is an assistant professor in the department of economics at Dr BR Ambedkar College, University of Delhi. Views expressed are the author’s own and don’t necessarily reflect those of Down To Earth.