ITC partners with Maharashtra, Karnataka governments for river basin rejuvenation

Bengaluru: Water scarcity is today a daunting threat which has got exacerbated by increasing demands from sectors like agriculture and rapid urbanization plus changing monsoon patterns due to climate change, which is further deteriorating the situation.

As rivers and their basins dry up resulting in depletion of ground water tables, communities grapple with challenges related to water availability for all needs.

In this context, multi-business conglomerate ITC Limited has pioneered a river basin revival programme. As part of its integrated water stewardship initiative, ITC has been working on enabling water-positive status at the basins of five rivers across five states by enhancing water availability and improving water use efficiency in agriculture, a company release has said.

A river basin is defined as the area of land that is drained by a river and all its tributaries.

ITC’s River Basin Revival Programme (RBRP) covers a total area of 21 lakh acres across Maharashtra, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh, and Karnataka.

Its initiatives have already enabled four basins including the Ghod river basin in Maharashtra become water-positive as against the water balance deficit estimated by the water balance studies done at the inception of work in each of these basins, the release says.

ITC’s Public-Private Partnership (PPP) with the Maharashtra Water Resources Department has marked a significant milestone in its journey of river basin regeneration.

Launched in February 2025, this partnership aims to enhance water use efficiency across 60 major irrigation projects in the Godavari, Krishna, and Tapi river basins.

Covering over 4.25 lakh acres and engaging 521 water user groups, the initiative aims to facilitate water-positive status in the basins by improving water literacy among Water User Groups and improving water use efficiency in major crops.

This collaboration builds on an earlier successful partnership with the state in 2020 that improved water use efficiency across five irrigation projects, positively impacting crop yields and farm incomes.

ITC’s partnership with the Department of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj (RDPR), Government of Karnataka, and with the Vyakti Vikas Kendra India (VVKI) in March 2025, is an important step for securing the South Pennar Basin.

The partnership will focus on improving water harvesting and groundwater recharge in South Pennar basin covering Bengaluru Urban and Rural, Kolar and Chikkaballapur districts, 12 Taluks, 238 Gram Panchayats and about 13,945 water harvesting and recharge structures.

ITC is leveraging the expertise of reputed knowledge partners such as WWF India, ACWADAM, Biome, International Water Management Institute (IWMI), Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore, and Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU), among others in its initiative.

The company has also signed 50-plus PPPs in total with different state governments so far for water stewardship and related aspects.

Commenting on the initiative, S Sivakumar, Head of Sustainability, Agri and IT at ITC Ltd. said, “As part of our large- scale sustainability efforts, ITC has pioneered a large-scale integrated water stewardship programme, earning the distinction of being water-positive for the last 22 years. Given the scale and complexity of climate change and increasing pressure on water resources, ITC has re-imagined its water stewardship strategy to strengthen the scale and impact of its initiatives by embarking upon an ambitious plan to achieve water-positive status at the river basin level. Our recent PPPs with the governments of Maharashtra and Karnataka embody our commitment to strengthen our river basin rejuvenation programme further in the days to come.”

River Basin Rejuvenation – How does it work?

A river basin becomes water stressed when it has negative water balance, which means the water requirement in the area is more than the available water. To understand the water balance, the company commissions hydrogeological studies to estimate water balance and map high-potential recharge zones.

Post the studies to make the river basin water-positive, ITC implements supply augmentation work – harvesting of rainwater, managing aquifer recharge, creating awareness, facilitating interventions to promote efficient water use, mainly in agriculture.

What is an aquifer?

An aquifer is underground layer where groundwater flows, and these aquifers are recharged by constructing deep water pits and recharge shafts in fracture zones.

By making river basins water-positive, ITC’s work has improved water flows in the corresponding rivers over time, as documented by GIS-based studies.

Power of scale

Emphasizing a 360-degree approach to water stewardship, ITC’s Water Stewardship Programme focuses on efficient water management and conservation through watershed development initiatives which have till date covered over 17 lakh acres and benefited more than 5 lakh people in 17 states.

To date, the company’s water stewardship initiatives have created a potential water storage capacity of 58.81 million KL.

To contextualise with an analogy, this is equivalent to filling up 23,524 Olympic sized swimming pools with that water potentially being saved.

Through demand-side water use efficiency initiatives across 17.24 lakh acres, it has achieved potential crop water savings of over 1,380 million KL in a year, the release says.