It starts the way it often does in Indian cities now: a work night before a big day, a meeting on the calendar, and an app on your phone’s home screen. A cough that has lingered for a week, the worry it might get worse, and the desire to be functional tomorrow. You open a quick‑commerce app that promises groceries in ten minutes and medicines in under an hour. A search bar, a suggestion chip for “cough & cold,” and then the thing you are not supposed to be able to buy without due process: an antibiotic.
You add it to the cart. The funnel is clean: pay now, and then choose between ‘upload prescription’ or ‘free teleconsult’. The order clock starts ticking only after payment. The clinical check is somewhere in the future.
This inversion—commerce first, medicine later—isn’t a glitch. It’s how some of India’s fastest‑growing platforms have decided to sell regulated drugs. And it lands in a country primed to say yes. For decades, the neighbourhood pharmacist has doubled as nurse, counsellor and sometimes, general physician. WhatsApp forwards pass for medical advice. Leftover tablets live in kitchen drawers. Antibiotics, especially, have become reflex—a strip for a cold, a child’s fever, “something viral.” We have learned to treat them like household tools. Apps now make that reflex kick in faster.
Also read: How drug-resistant tuberculosis is bringing life to a halt in India
To see how quickly that reflex turns into a delivery at the door, I ran a simple test over three days in Bengaluru on six leading platforms: four quick‑commerce marketplaces that fulfill orders through partner pharmacies, and two inventory‑led e‑pharmacies that ship from their own licensed stores. I attempted to buy three common Schedule H antibiotics, including Augmentin. By law, these drugs require a doctor’s prescription and pharmacist oversight because inappropriate use can drive resistance, trigger serious side effects or lead to dependence. I also tried one Schedule H1 drug—Levoflox (levofloxacin)—which calls for stricter rules: pharmacies must record the buyer’s details, the prescriber’s name and the quantity sold, and preserve those records for three years.
This inversion—commerce first, medicine later—isn’t a glitch.
Each attempt succeeded. Most deliveries arrived within minutes; some in six, most under fifty. One took a day and a half, but the ordering experience was the same.
The architecture of the checkout explains why. The apps present a fork: upload a prescription or get a “free” teleconsult. In practice, both paths flip the sequence that any responsible pharmacist or physician would expect. The user must pay for the medication before any meaningful verification—be it a prescription check or a teleconsultation—is initiated. This design makes the medical justification a reversible afterthought, while the sale is a locked-in certainty.
When I uploaded prescriptions, some platforms accepted documents that were outdated, mismatched in dosage, or obviously not for the drug in the cart. By law, under the Drugs & Cosmetics Act and the Pharmacy Act—reinforced by a 2015 circular that extended these rules to online sales—every prescription is supposed to be reviewed by a pharmacist, the same as when you hand one over at a physical counter. But most approvals happened silently, and it remained unclear whether a pharmacist actually looked at my prescriptions. In one case only, a pharmacist did review my prescription, caught the discrepancy, called me to reject it, and then set up a teleconsult with a doctor who approved the order within minutes.
This design makes the medical justification a reversible afterthought, while the sale is a locked-in certainty.
The teleconsults themselves were brief. Audio calls, often under a minute, with three to four questions, sometimes leading. “Is your throat hurting?” when the order was for Azithromycin. “Any allergies?” “Name and age?” Vague complaints—“ear pain,” “ran out of medicines,” “my doctor gave this months ago”—were enough for both Schedule H and H1 drugs. The digital prescriptions produced after these calls were inconsistent: different diagnoses for identical symptoms, different dosage schedules for the same medicine, and patient names that didn’t match the account holder. All doctors were located in cities and small towns far away. The antibiotics shipped anyway.
On August 11, the All India Organisation of Chemists and Druggists (AIOCD), representing 1.24 million chemists nationwide, sounded the alarm for its own reasons and some of the public’s. They wrote to Union Home Minister Amit Shah, naming big quick‑commerce brands and accusing them of delivering Schedule H, H1 and X drugs within minutes while “skipping mandatory prescription verification”. The group flagged “ghost prescriptions”—medicines approved without genuine verification, including late-night approvals for distant patients—and warned that easy access to controlled substances could fuel drug abuse among the youth.
These failures are embedded in three business models that are now vying for the pharmacy market.
Inventory-led companies sell from their own licensed pharmacies and manage inventory, emphasising—at least on paper—pharmacist-verified supply over speed. Marketplace e-pharmacies don’t hold their own retail licences. They connect customers to a network of licensed pharmacies that dispense the drugs. Finally, quick-commerce platforms plug into this system as logistics/tech intermediaries, often tying up with marketplace players or licensed pharmacies to deliver in minutes.
Speed is loyalty and friction is the enemy. A pharmacist who calls back to ask a hard question becomes a drop‑off point in a funnel.
This distinction is not determinative for the safety of the consumer. All three models delivered antibiotics with equal ease and equal lack of meaningful checks. None of this is surprising if you’ve watched Indian e‑commerce and quick commerce over the last five years; the race is to become the app you open daily. Average order values for medicines are higher than those for groceries, with repeat rates often hitting 50% monthly, creating the sticky customer relationships that platforms desperately seek to make investors happy.
Speed is loyalty and friction is the enemy. A pharmacist who calls back to ask a hard question becomes a drop‑off point in a funnel.
This would be just another story about tech breaking things if antibiotics were ordinary goods. They aren’t. Misusing antibiotics—taking them when not needed, stopping early, or taking the wrong one—kills off the easy-to-kill bacteria and strengthens the survivors, who multiply and share resistance traits.
The result shows up in labs: about 37% E. coli isolates (the most common bacterial pathogen) tested by the Indian Council of Medical Research no longer responded to imipenem, a class of medication doctors try to save for severe infections. Routine infections now drag on for longer, cost more, and force doctors to burn through classes of drugs they would rather hold back. As reliability fades, risks are mounting across the system since surgeries, chemotherapy, and intensive care all depend on antibiotics working.
What makes this risk sharper is the mix of drugs that online pharmacies keep in stock. The World Health Organisation classifies antibiotics into three groups: Access (broad-spectrum, lower resistance potential), Watch (higher resistance risk, should be restricted), and Reserve (last-resort drugs). Its stewardship goal is that at least 60% of global antibiotic use come from the Access group. But a study of Indian e-pharmacies found over 70% of the antibiotics available online fell in the Watch category, with Reserve drugs also on offer—widening the scope for misuse.
Of the four antibiotics I tested, three fall in WHO’s ‘Watch’ category, with only Augmentin in the safer ‘Access’ group.
Dr Sharad Khorwal, a general physician in Noida, has watched this change at the bedside. “Diseases we once handled with oral antibiotics now often need intravenous therapy, sometimes third‑ or fourth‑generation antibiotics. When I started my medical career forty years ago, typhoid was infrequent and responded to antibiotic pills. Today, most cases need 10–15 days of IV treatment. The tablets that worked then are just out of action.”
When I shared what medicines I was able to order via the apps, he’s blunt: “Azithromycin, Augmentin, Levofloxacin are very potent antibiotics. But today people are using Azithromycin like Vitamin C, not knowing that it’s one of the medicines required to treat drug-resistant typhoid. Look at the harm being done.”
Also read: The looming crisis of post-antibiotic era
The deeper problem is cultural muscle memory. For many families, time and money are tight. The clinic is far, but the pharmacist is near. For many, self‑medication is not a corner case; it’s a starting point. Instant delivery apps didn’t create that habit, but they are scaling it.
And the state hasn’t kept up. The Drugs & Cosmetics Act, 1940, and its Rules, 1945, are the bedrock. They created Schedules H and H1, mandating a prescription for sale. The Pharmacy Act, 1948, regulates the profession. These laws were written for a world of physical counters and paper trails. But a 2015 circular by the Drugs Controller General of India did clearly state that all online and offline sellers must meet the same licence/pharmacist/prescription obligations.
In 2018, the health ministry drafted e-pharmacy rules as an amendment to the Drugs and Cosmetics Rules, 1945, to address online sales, requiring central registration and mandating pharmacist verification. Seven years later, those rules have still not been notified. Besides, they failed to cover marketplace players, focussing only on e-pharmacies. In late 2022, the government introduced the Drugs, Medical Devices and Cosmetics Bill, a law intended to replace the 1940 Act. It explicitly brings e-pharmacies under its regulatory ambit by requiring mandatory licensing. This, too, remains in draft form.
This regulatory inertia has forced courts to intervene: the Delhi High Court has repeatedly directed the government to formulate rules, while the Madras High Court has clarified, in 2024, that existing pharmacy laws apply equally online, but has allowed online sales to continue pending final notification.
The newly enacted Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act, 2023 further complicates matters with few specific safeguards for health data, leaving prescription images and medical histories vulnerable on corporate servers. “When you come to my shop,” notes Rajiv Singal, General Secretary of AIOCD, “I don’t store your private health data. I don’t tell anyone what you have. Why should an app have a database that stores a record that you have tuberculosis or diabetes? That’s your secret, that’s your private matter.”
The 2020 Telemedicine Practice Guidelines updated during COVID-19 already provide a framework for remote consultations. They require a proper patient history and documentation, and video calls as the doctors deem necessary. But, as my testing showed, the perfunctory, sub-one-minute audio chats used to approve antibiotics on demand violate this spirit.
These regulatory gaps and delays have been good for the apps. They have enabled the surge of the marketplace model, particularly attractive to quick-commerce platforms backed by foreign direct investment (which faces restrictions in inventory-based pharmacy models). By acting as intermediaries rather than licensed dispensers, these platforms keep liability and capital needs lower, while scaling fast.
Like many physicians, Dr Khorwal believes instant delivery of prescription medicines, especially antibiotics, is fundamentally incompatible with responsible use. “A 1:1 physical examination of the patient is compulsory.” When asked about the way forward if we assume digital access to medicines is here to stay, he stands his ground. “For OTC medicines and supplements, online delivery is okay. For the elderly, for the immobile, teleconsultation is also fine for the first line of treatment. But nothing can replace an in-person examination by a doctor.”
Younger doctors are more open to the need and inevitability of digital innovation, but also draw the line when it comes to the nature of 1:1 consultations. “Teleconsultations for prescription medicines need to be via a video call at the very least, otherwise it’s impossible to diagnose acute or chronic conditions that actually require antibiotics,” according to Dr Rahul Arora, a general physician based in Delhi.
Given the government’s unwavering focus on the National Digital Health Mission, it’s safe to assume online delivery of medicines is here to stay. And it undeniably solves real access problems. The goal then is to innovate towards safety, and the technical fixes aren't that hard to imagine.
For OTC medicines and supplements, online delivery is okay. For the elderly, for the immobile, teleconsultation is also fine for the first line of treatment. But nothing can replace an in-person examination by a doctor.
Two Bengaluru-based product managers (PMs) in quick commerce described how they would design this safeguard, if speed wasn’t the only factor.
These safeguards could be coded directly into checkout flows. But some problems like preventing the same prescription being reused across multiple platforms need regulation and enforcement. That is where product fixes end and the law must step in.
For instance, the UK requires online and distance-selling pharmacies to check the patient’s identity using photo IDs, facilitate robust two-way clinical exchanges between the patient and prescriber (particularly if antimicrobials are in play) and almost everyone uses the same central digital rail–the NHS Electronic Prescription Service. Prescribers (GPs and other authorised clinicians) and pharmacy teams sign in with smartcards. Each prescription is created, signed, dispensed and logged in one system, tied to named professionals. This combination of strict checks and shared infrastructure blocks anonymous approvals, makes re-use across outlets hard and gives regulators a clean audit trail.
A good place to start for India, as Kazim Rizvi–founder of The Dialogue, a Delhi-based think tank at the intersection of tech, public policy and society–writes, is finalising the 2018 e-pharmacy rules and explicitly covering marketplace/intermediary platforms. And then, operationalising them: make apps verify every seller by having pharmacies upload their licence to their backend; mandate audit trails linking each order, prescription, verifying pharmacist and dispensing pharmacy; and, require platforms to retain those trails and teleconsult notes for audits.
But some problems like preventing the same prescription being reused across multiple platforms need regulation and enforcement. That is where product fixes end and the law must step in.
Finally, ensure every order is billed by the licensed pharmacy (not the app) with a traceable cash/credit memo listing the patient, drug/strength, quantity, prescriber and Rx date, pharmacist registration, timestamp, order ID, and the pharmacy’s licence number.
The nuance here is that none of this kills speed for most orders. The number of people who order antibiotics on any given day is a tiny slice of the total volume. Platforms can dial up safeguards only for those products and only at the point of risk. Delivery times might increase by a few minutes or hours for antibiotic orders, but that seems like a fair trade for public health.
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The bell rings. The last order in my three-day test arrives. A paper bag with a strip of tablets inside, no invoice, no prescription.
I don’t take the pills. The strip sits unopened because this was a test of the pathway, not a cure. But the ease with which I could have taken them—the way the apps made it feel normal—is the point.
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Editor’s note: The last two decades have been witness to the rapid and devastating march of unchecked urbanisation and climate change in India’s cities. Among the first victims of this change is freshwater and access to it—from rivers which sustained local ecosystems, to lakes and groundwater which quenched the thirst of residents. In this series, the Good Food Movement examines the everyday realities of neglect and pollution. It documents the vanishing and revival of water bodies, and community action that made a difference.
“We’re flushing money down the commode!”
When Professor R. Rajagopalan exclaims this, he neatly captures both the value of water, as well as what we lose by simply flushing it away and draining it into lakes. Recycling water, treating it via Sewage Treatment Plants (STPs), and re-using it in our daily lives is not merely a question of water sustainability anymore. When run and used properly, STPs can enable climate resilience, recharge groundwater tables and blue, full lakes, as well as save a lot of money.
Rajagopalan, a former professor at the Institute of Rural Management (IRMA), believes this fact—and lives it. He has been the Chairman of the massive L&T South City Apartment complex in Bengaluru—a residential space comprising 1998 flats with over 7,000 residents—for over a decade. “We get our water supply from three main sources,” he explains. “Our onsite borewells, public water supply delivered by the Bengaluru Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB), and water tankers. At one point, we had 60 tankers coming every day to fulfill our needs. Who wants to hunt for so many tankers? Forget Bengaluru, it's too much for me to manage.” Tankers also don’t come cheap; Rajagoapan reveals that his apartment complex was spending as much as Rs 12 lakhs a month on them.
2023 was declared a drought year by the Karnataka government. Rainfall in this year was inadequate in meeting the city’s water needs, so in the summer of 2024, Bengaluru made the national news for imposing restrictions on water usage for citizens. This led to loud protests across social media from residents of apartment complexes. More invisibly, it had steep consequences for the most vulnerable in the city.
In January 2025, the BWSSB and Indian Institute of Sciences (IISc) identified 80 wards that they understood to be most at risk to face a severe water crisis and scarcity in the summer. They recommended switching to Cauvery connections, with groundwater depleting at a faster rate.
They also note one crucial point in the face of this crisis: even as consumption of water has increased in the last few years, the amount of wastewater that is recycled in the city still remains low.
According to Water, Environment, Land and Livelihoods (WELL) Labs, a Bengaluru-based non-profit and research organisation, the factors that cause Bengaluru’s water crisis are interconnected. In their 2023 report, How Water Flows Through Bengaluru: Urban Water Balance Report, co-authors Rashmi Kulranjan, Shashank Palur and Muhil Nesi write: "With abundant rainfall and little room for recharge, wells run dry as drains overflow. Despite being allocated water from the Cauvery river, the expanding city, particularly the newer suburbs, has become increasingly dependent on a fast-depleting resource—groundwater.”
They also note one crucial point in the face of this crisis: even as consumption of water has increased in the last few years, the amount of wastewater that is recycled in the city still remains low.
Also read: In Gurugram’s rise, a cautionary tale about satellite cities and groundwater
It was during this crisis, in April 2024, that Rajagopalan made his case to the residents of South City. He explained that investing in a retrofit project for reusing treated wastewater (TWW) from an installed STP for flushing toilets would benefit them financially and environmentally, of course—but more importantly, this would make them more water-resilient. Stronger in the face of future crises.
“The timing of our project was important. If water is not available in a high-rise building, it will cause hell. When the Bengaluru water crisis came in 2024, the only way we could ration water in South City was to stop water supply in one bathroom in each flat. Sheer irritation was introduced,” he says, with a touch of humour. “People are willing to throw away money to buy more tankers, but you can not over-consume water when the city is suffering. What we found was that out of 12 lakh litres that we used every day, between 3-4 lakh litres was for flushing. With the BWSSB water supply never being sufficient, we had to buy tankers just for flushing. It was too expensive. So people were eager to get the retrofit for treated water use implemented.”
South City made a commitment to BWSSB: they will execute the treated water project expeditiously, if their sanitary charges can be reduced in proportion to their extent of treated water reuse. Currently, houses in a domestic highrise pay a minimum of Rs 100 or 25% of their water bill per month as sanitary charge if they get their water from BWSSB, or a flat amount of Rs 100 if they get it from borewells.
“We retrofitted 1630 apartments in 18 high-rise towers. Within a matter of 6 months, between March and September of 2024, we started saving 3.5 lakh litres of fresh water a day, and Rs 9 lakh per month on freshwater purchase through tankers,” Rajagopalan says. “People realised that they were literally flushing money down the toilet, because each house was using one tanker a month—just to flush! After installing the STP, tankers have been reduced by about 10%. In fact, after accounting for the usage of this treated water in our housing complex, we still have enough to let out into a neighbourhood lake.”
This makes South City a pioneer—the first apartment in Bengaluru to strike an MOU with the State Pollution Control Board and Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) to let treated water revive a lake. “We also supply our treated water to a large public park. Our retrofit project is living proof that policy support could trigger an environment-friendly private effort to conserve water,” Rajagopalan adds.
In 2016, the BWSSB passed a mandate that required every apartment complex larger than 20 units to have their own STP and reuse all their treated water, but was met with resistance. In 2023, the mandate was amended; it stipulated that residential and commercial buildings above a certain area should install on-site decentralised sewage treatment plants (STPs).
WELL Labs reports that Bengaluru generates enough wastewater a day to fill over 750 Olympic-size swimming pools. This is more than the amount of water it draws from the ground or the Cauvery river. Critically, the city’s water supply and sewage system does not cover the rapidly growing suburbs with higher population densities.
The city now has the largest number of decentralised STPs globally—about 2,700, which can treat over 615 million litres of sewage every day. Beijing has 2000 such STPs, San Francisco has 50, and New York only has 30 plants. But many of Bengaluru’s plants are being under-utilised: many are defective, don’t meet specifications, and the apartments may remain unaware of the problems with the plant.
But there is one more problem with treating wastewater in apartments. About 30 kms across South City, an STP was installed for the residents in Century Saras in Yelahanka right when the complex was being constructed. However, even with 128 flats and over 350 residents, this society never had BWSSB connections, still doesn’t, and does not want them in the future.
According to Suresh Pai, Vice President of the Century Saras’ Owners Association, “We don’t have any BWSSB water pipes here and we are not connected to the sewage lines. The government is always 10 years behind development, but between rainwater harvesting, water saving measures, and our STP, we meet our demands internally.”
He explains the hesitation in getting a connection now, which will only increase costs. “We save about 20,000 liters of water per day because of the STP. We use most of the treated water in our common areas, and have also given it away to a nearby construction site, but now we have to let some go into the stormwater drains because no one is ready to take our excess water—even though we’re ready to give it for free!”
Pai points out a well known challenge in the STP ecosystem: he mentions the quality control that the building does once a month on its treated water, assuring that it meets every criteria. Yet, in the absence of without support from the BWSSB, there is no market for treated water. “Tanker operators were not ready to take the water, because they can’t use the same tanker for fresh water and treated water. And there were not enough buyers for treated water.”
Local authorities, too, are cognizant of how much treated wastewater is going to waste. Of the wastewater treated by both decentralised and BWSSB-held STPs every day, nearly 720 million litres remain unused. Treated wastewater can replace freshwater in many non-potable uses. In fact, a 2023 report from the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW), states that 80% of wastewater generated by urban India has the potential to be treated and reused for non-potable purposes like irrigation.
Local authorities, too, are cognizant of how much treated wastewater is going to waste. Of the wastewater treated by both decentralised and BWSSB-held STPs every day, nearly 720 million litres remain unused.
That’s not all. Treated wastewater can even recharge lakes and aquifers, or groundwater levels. Efforts of this nature and scale are regional, and each state actually sets its own policies and standards on mandated usage of treated wastewater, where it can be used, and so on. The Karnataka government lists wetland restoration, river augmentation, and environmental recreation as potential areas for TWW reuse. As of today, the BWSSB is looking to recharge about 40 lakes within Bengaluru with treated water.
As detailed in a Mongabay India report, the state experimented with this in 2018, when it filled 137 water tanks in Kolar, a drought-prone region, with TWW from Bengaluru. In a recent assessment, it was found that the groundwater levels in the Kolar tank have now increased by 73% and the number of water bodies increased by 5 times. The number of trees shot up and even cropping land increased. It was an immensely successful endeavour.
Yet, having too much treated wastewater on one’s hands remains an ongoing issue.
Also read: Bengaluru is fated to run out of water. When will the crisis hit?
Apartments couldn’t always sell their treated wastewater. In fact, it was only last year that the Karnataka government allowed apartment complexes to sell a maximum of 50% of their treated water. This one move created an entire wastewater market that could potentially meet 26% of the city’s needs. According to WELLS Lab, treated wastewater is being sold at around Rs 10-80/kL–compare this to the price of tankwater, which can go as high as Rs 200/kL.
Shashank Palur, Senior Hydrologist at WELL Labs says, “The wastewater ecosystem hasn’t scaled. While apartment complexes comply with the 2023 mandate, challenges with the quality of treated wastewater remain, and more importantly, the lack of places to send the excess water to. Most apartments can use portions of their treated water for green or common areas, and some can use them for flushing, but the remainder is let out into the drains. The BWSSB has set up a website where organisations can buy treated water from their STPs, but it has not caught on.”
According to WELLS Lab, treated wastewater is being sold at around Rs 10-80/kL–compare this to the price of tankwater, which can go as high as Rs 200/kL.
The private sector has invested in setting up treatment plants, too. Sachin S.V., Senior Engineer Environment at Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL), shares that BEL put in place a 10 million litre STP along the Doddabommasandra Lake in 2018; since then, the state government has recharged and replenished the 300-year-old lake with the treated water from the STP. “Through our CSR initiatives, BEL is also in charge of maintaining this STP for the next 20 years. With the rising population, STPs are the best option to reclaim 80% of water that is going to waste.”
As Bengaluru moves forward, Palur thinks all these learnings and success stories can demonstrate a more efficient approach to the city’s water with the right mix and scale of STPs, in a more sustainable fashion.
He says, “The BWSSB is building more STPs with better treatment capacities; however, these are towards the outskirts of the city, due to a lack of space. Topographically, (being) at a lower elevation, this makes sense for treatment–but not reuse within the city,”
When it comes to apartment STPs, Palur argues that the approach should shift away from individual apartments to being community-oriented. “Piped network for supplying treated water can be explored, as it makes better economical sense in the long term. The larger city-wide trunk line for treated water supply needs to be owned by BWSSB, but the initial efforts can be taken up by the community, and (helped by) incentives by the BWSSB. We are working on that right now, coming up with models and vetting solutions to see how this can work out.”
Edited by Neerja Deodhar and Anushka Mukherjee
Produced by Nevin Thomas and Neerja Deodhar
Also read: Recycled water helps meet India’s cleaning needs. But can it quench our thirst?
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What defines a great meal? The portion size, flavour, colour, aesthetic, or price? To each their own. For me, it is memory—a meal’s ability to forge itself into my mind.
The one memory of food that makes me salivate instantly revolves around kokum. Just the sight of the sour, violaceous fruit can roll time backwards, taking me back to my nani’s chawl, barefoot on a sun-warmed terrace. The dish itself was simple—boiled potatoes, cubed and steeped in a kokum-laal mirchi paste which was ladled out every evening by Ayesha aunty, who ran a brisk, informal business. Children lined up for the potatoes, priced at Rs 2 for 4–5 pieces, but the real demand was always, “Thoda extra masala, please.” The fiery paste clung to our fingers and lit up our tongues. The dish, typically made by Mumbai’s Bohra community, was tempered with mustard seeds and curry leaves, but its highlight remained the kokum.
Years later, a sudden craving for the dish struck me while I was living in Bengaluru. I wandered through markets, only to be met with confusion. “Kokum?” one shopkeeper asked, as if I had made up the word. The lack of excitement about the fruit in the city led me to trace why a souring agent so central to my childhood—and to many regional Indian kitchens—remains unknown elsewhere.
The kokum tree (Garcinia indica) grows wild like a dome of green capped by ruby-red fruit. Across India, it goes by many names—ratamba in Marathi, punarpuli in Kannada, kaattampi kokkam in Malayalam, and even brindao in Portuguese. In Sanskrit, it’s poetically called amlasaka and vrikshamia. Kokum is considered a Non Timber Forest Product, signifying its role in the lives and livelihoods of local communities who carefully collect and sell the product, holding up a very robust ecosystem.
When dried, the fruit resembles a shrunken plum. Its rind, once soaked and simmered, has a mauve hue and lends a sweet-sour aftertaste to food and drink alike. The fruit’s pulp is blended, combined with sugar syrup, and then mixed with water to make sharbat, the beverage of choice for many Indians on the western coast during the sweltering summers. Its refreshing tartness is even served at Mantralaya, the Maharashtra state secretariat in Mumbai. Along the highways of the Western Ghats, roadside eateries offer kokum soda to travellers. And then there’s solkadhi, a beloved drink made of coconut milk and kokum. The creamy pink appetiser is flavoured with aromatics like grushed garlic and ginger, coriander leaves and green chili; it pairs beautifully with the spice-laden fish curries of the coast.
Kokum was awarded a Geographical Indication (GI) tag in 2016.
For me, kokum will always be a flavour that tastes like childhood. But when I began speaking to people who have written and talked passionately about the fruit for years, different viewpoints emerged. Veteran agriculture journalist Shree Padre, who has tracked the crop for decades, says, “It’s a fruit of the future.”
Also read: Why bajra, the ‘pearl’ of India’s millets, remains underutilised
According to journalist-cum-farmer Padre, kokum remains untapped in India due to two major reasons. “First, there is a lack of awareness outside the Konkan region, Maharashtra, and parts of Karnataka. And secondly, the difficult post-harvest operations, which are labour-intensive,” he says. Padre is referring to the manual process of soaking, draining and drying the fruit’s pulp and rind carefully–and importantly–within precise windows over a cycle of a few days.
For context, Maharashtra’s Ratnagiri district is the de facto kokum capital of India. “If Konkan is the body of kokum,” explains Padre, “then Ankola and beyond are its tails.” Further south, in Kerala, kokum is virtually unknown; here, the region's native fruit Garcinia gummi-gutta–a botanical cousin–has been traditional to the native cuisine for generations. The dried rind of the fruit is used in fish curries and exported as a diet supplement.
Kokum can be cultivated either through grafting or by planting a seedling–the choice determines the fruit-bearing period. When grafted, fruits begin to appear within 3-4 years of cultivation, and with a seedling, it can take anywhere from 6-8 years. Kokum fruits flower over the winter and are ready to be harvested about 120 days from the fruit bearing. A strong, 15-year old seedling plant can bear 30-50 kgs of fruit. If there had been better awareness about kokum and its counterparts, producers may have experimented with farming practices to suit the ecological conditions of other regions beyond its native range. They could have studied soil requirements, rainfall patterns, and shade preferences that can support the plant’s growth. However, since its knowledge has largely remained within local communities, such attempts have rarely been made.
Its short shelf life means it is seldom consumed fresh, leading people to adapt by drying it, blending it, or turning it into a value-added product.
Kokum was awarded a Geographical Indication (GI) tag in 2016. This made the name ‘Sindhudurg & Ratnagiri Kokum’ exclusive to the kokum grown in these regions. It thus became the first kokum variety from India and the 13th product from Maharashtra to earn the label. According to a survey by the Chief Conservator of Forests, Maharashtra is home to nearly 46,600 kokum trees, the vast majority of which are found in the Ratnagiri and Sindhudurg districts. But this data remains outdated, with no clear estimates about the extent of the crop’s cultivation in the past 15 years or so.
The issue of post-harvest processing that Padre raises is particularly prominent during the rainy season. “Since most kokum comes from wild collection rather than commercial cultivation, drying is a challenge. Many collectors dry kokum on roadsides in unhygienic conditions, reducing product quality. A social worker from the US once attempted to import kokum but faced difficulties in securing a reliable, high-quality supply. Although some training efforts were made, large-scale exports never materialised,” explains Padre.
Part of the fruit’s obscurity comes down to timing and toil. It ripens at the peak of summer just before the monsoons and is highly perishable. “Once harvested, fruit flies attack it immediately,” says Savita Uday, a researcher and educator who has worked deep in the forests of the Western Ghats for over 12 years. “Because of this, many people who drink kokum juice have never actually seen the fruit.”
Secluded in India’s Western Ghats, the kokum tree produces fruit that is processed into dark, sticky orbs with curled edges. But it is more than just the dried chunks found in glass jars at spice stores. Across the Konkan belt, it is a staple, a source of refreshment, and a marker of tradition. For the people of Maharashtra, Goa, and parts of Karnataka, kokum is omnipresent in dals, bhaajis, and kadhis. Yet it is rarely spoken about outside culinary contexts, perhaps because kokum isn’t a typical table fruit or commercial staple. Its short shelf life means it is seldom consumed fresh, leading people to adapt by drying it, blending it, or turning it into a value-added product.
For over two decades, the Western Ghats Kokum Foundation, established by Ajit Shirodkar in Goa, has worked to reposition kokum as a commercial crop. Formed in 2000, its mission has been to raise the fruit’s profile. To do so, the team has conducted national seminars and worked to raixse awareness about kokum. “During one such seminar, it was noted that there are 48 patents related to kokum across India. Despite this, research remains limited, as kokum is not considered a commercial crop but a minor forest fruit. Only the Konkan Krishi Vidyapeeth in Dapoli has conducted significant research, including experiments on pruning to facilitate harvesting,” Padre says.
The foundation published a Resource Book on Kokum, one of the few comprehensive documents available on the crop. Miguel de Braganza, a horticulturist and kokum enthusiast from Goa, and the editor of the book, was also the first to exhibit kokum in a full-fledged festival. The impact of the Konkan Fruit Fest (KFF), he says, was such that “people began planting grafts of the variety in Vengurla.”
Priya Devi, Principal Scientist at the ICAR–Indian Institute of Horticultural Research, who has studied the fruit for over a decade and who wrote her doctoral thesis, too, on kokum, points to the efforts being made by multiple institutions across the country to bureaucratically popularise the fruit. “Different organisations are taking efforts to promote commercialisation of the crop,” she notes. The ICAR–National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources has a mandate for Garcinia indica. The Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Rights Authority also provides guidelines for registering kokum varieties. As part of their research, Devi and her team attempted to grow kokum across several Indian states, but found that it only performs well in Peninsular India, especially in the Western Ghats.
In 2012, an American celebrity doctor claimed that Garcinia extracts were a weight-loss “holy grail” on national television. The trend saw Google searches for ‘Garcinia’ skyrocket, and a multinational market was created almost overnight, which branded the plant as the ‘newest, fastest fat-buster’. The claims, though, had little scientific basis, as Oxford’s Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine found no evidence that hydroxycitric acid, garcinia cambogia’s active ingredient, encouraged weight loss, but that has not stopped sales.
Debates about weight loss aside, the leathery fruit has long been a trusted natural remedy—to ease digestion, cool the body, and treat inflammation. The Indian Ministry of AYUSH has even listed it among 140 important medicinal plants that receive support for cultivation, a recognition of its value in traditional healing. Moreover, the smooth, stable and rich butter made from its seeds has a demand in the cosmetics world as an alternative to cocoa butter. In places like Italy, kokum butter has found a small but growing export market.
If you visit the Konkan region and throw a stone, it will likely hit someone involved in kokum value addition at the domestic level.
“Value addition is necessary,” states Devi, encouraging people to experiment with the many properties of the kokum fruit. For instance, she points out that kokum butter, which is also used as a base in chocolates, is superior because of its ability to hold form without instantly melting in the hand. She also explains how this makes the butter valuable in both the pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries.
Padre adds, “Value-added kokum products have significant demand due to their numerous benefits. Kokum butter and kokum aamsul (salted rinds of the kokum fruit) are already well-known, but there are many unexplored possibilities. If you visit the Konkan region and throw a stone, it will likely hit someone involved in kokum value addition at the domestic level.”
One such stakeholder is Ganapathi Bhat from Honnavar, Karnataka, who has 10–12 kokum trees on his 1.5-acre farm. Around 2006, when Bhat’s father fell ill, he had to take over family responsibilities. At the time, he was working as a clerk in a cooperative society, earning a modest salary of just Rs 1,000–Rs 3,000 per month. A local entrepreneur, who was producing various fruit squashes, came to source kokum from the area. Aware of Bhat’s financial difficulties, he suggested that the then-clerk try making kokum products at home. With his guidance and training, Bhat began producing agal or kokum squash (fruit syrup, meant to be diluted with water for a drink).
“My mother took the lead in the beginning,” he recalls. Kokum fruit is harvested in April and May, and the Bhats followed a traditional method of preparing the squash:
That first year, they produced 100 bottles, which sold out within a month. Encouraged by the demand, they increased production the following year. Eventually, Bhat decided to resign from his job and fully dedicate himself to the squash business.
Over time, they developed five types of kokum-based products:
“Every year, we process about 5–6 tons of kokum and sell approximately 25,000 kilograms of raw kokum,” Bhatt says with pride.
Still, the fruit’s full potential remains largely untapped. Padre has more ideas, like kokum jam, which are yet to be explored. He mentions kokum dispensers at railway stations—once built, now abandoned. Kokum candy was developed by the Central Food Technological Research Institute, but it is not widely available. “The colour is the USP,” he insists, referring to the fruit’s deep, jewel-toned hue that paints every dish it touches.
Also read: The fall of the Mathania Mirch in a thirsty desert
Despite the praises sung by kokum’s advocates, the fruit struggles to carve out a market for itself. The main reason: widespread adulteration.
Many manufacturers dilute genuine kokum with artificial citric acid and synthetic food colouring to cut costs. “This affects the demand for authentic kokum. I often receive bulk orders from cities like Bengaluru and Mangaluru, but due to adulteration, only about 50% of the kokum available in the market is pure. The rest is mixed with artificial additives,” explains Bhat.
For the average consumer, kokum remains a mystery. Even if they’ve tasted it in sharbat or curries, they’ve rarely seen or touched the fruit itself. Savita Uday, who works to introduce urban dwellers to kokum in an intimate and experiential way, emphasises that the fruit’s perishability is a major issue.
“When I began living in the forest, I wondered how to bridge this gap,” Uday recalls. She started organising one-week programs where people could visit, harvest kokum, process it, and take ownership of the experience. Alongside local communities, she compiled kokum recipes and created a book. Initially, they were harvesting from just 2–3 trees, but she encouraged locals to participate in harvesting more. Eventually, they began producing and selling kokum fruit preserves, which became especially popular with school groups.
Also read: How the 'makrei' sticky rice fosters love, labour in Manipur
Echoing Padre’s concerns about hygiene in kokum processing, Uday adds, “In villages, people often dry kokum in their courtyards, but when it rains, they don’t always bring it in on time. We began drying it on white sheets, carefully selecting only the best fruits. That one change significantly improved quality, and demand for both dried kokum and kokum preserves increased.”
She further highlights the importance of timing: the fruit ripens at the peak of summer, but if the monsoon arrives early, the crop gets infested with worms and becomes unusable. “Timing is everything. Sometimes I announce a harvest date, only to find that the fruit isn’t fully ripe yet. Then I have to rush to another village, where the fruit might ripen a week earlier or later,” she explains.
For the average consumer, kokum remains a mystery. Even if they’ve tasted it in sharbat or curries, they’ve rarely seen or touched the fruit itself.
The fruit is threatened by decreased rainfall and hot temperatures; one study suggests that kokum may go extinct by 2050 as a result of climate change. But experts are in disagreement about the study and the fears it raises.
Kokum’s distinct and yet humble nature allows it to blend into countless dishes. In tracing this fruit I discovered as a child, I uncovered not only its deep-rooted cultural archive, but also the many recipes, virtues and initiatives that have kept it alive across generations.
Kokum aloo recipe:
Boil 8-10 baby potatoes until just done (don’t overcook), then peel and halve them. Meanwhile, grind 4 soaked pieces of kokum with red chili powder, fennel seeds, and a little water into a thick paste. Heat some oil in a pan, add sliced green chilies and curry leaves, sauté briefly, and mix in the kokum paste. Adjust spice by adding more red chili powder if desired, then season with salt and a bit of sugar. Toss in the halved potatoes and stir well so the flavors coat them evenly. Finish by garnishing with pomegranate seeds before serving.
Edited by Neerja Deodhar and Anushka Mukherjee
Additional edits by Durga Sreenivasan
Nuapada district in western Odisha is home to several tribal communities, including the Gond, Paharia, Kondh, and the Chuktia Bhunjia—one of India’s Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs). For generations, these communities have sustained their food systems through rain-fed agriculture, cultivating native varieties of millets, paddy, pulses, and vegetables using mixed and rotational cropping methods. Among these crops, little millet (Panicum sumatrense), locally known as ‘gurji’, has been a major staple. It grows well in less fertile soils under rain-fed conditions, and can withstand drought, prolonged dry spells, and even waterlogging, making it an exceptionally resilient crop suited to diverse and challenging environments.
Tribal communities in Nuapada have traditionally cultivated several native varieties of little millet, including bad gurji, jhar gurji, jhati gurji, jhumki gurji, and san gurji. Each variety is distinct, differing in crop duration, grain size, colour, and taste. Among them, jhati gurji is the most preferred. It is a short-duration crop, typically harvested within 70 days. Known for its arched panicles and small, shiny grey grains, jhati gurji is valued both for its agronomic advantages and cultural significance.
“Jhati gurji is sown early in June and harvested before paddy, by early August. It’s the first crop of the season. We harvest jhati gurji when no other standing crop is available—it’s like our survival food,” says Rama Majhi, a 42-year-old farmer from the Dholamunda village in Nuapada. The harvest period of jhati gurji coincides with Nuakhai, a popular harvest festival celebrated across West Odisha. Majhi adds, “If we harvest around 2–3 quintals of jhati gurji, we store one quintal for household consumption and sell the rest.”
Since there is no Minimum Support Price (MSP) for little millet in Odisha, many farmers are shifting to other crops like paddy and maize.
Jhati gurji holds deep cultural significance among tribal communities. “Our Nuakhai celebration is incomplete without jhati gurji,” says 37-year-old Padma Jhankar from Jamgarh village in Komna. When freshly harvested, it has a milky flavour, while grains stored for over six months develop a taste similar to fish eggs. During Nuakhai, it is prepared in a variety of traditional recipes, including rice, gruel, puffed rice, and sweets, she says. Its importance is also reflected in local oral traditions, with jhati gurji frequently mentioned in tribal songs as a testament to its integral role in cultural heritage (one such song can be found at the end of this article!). “Despite its rich heritage, jhati gurji is under threat due to the spread of hybrid crops and the growing practice of monocropping,” says Pritesh Sundar Roy, programme officer of seed systems at the Watershed Support Services and Activities Network (WASSAN), Bhubaneswar. It is an NGO that works with the rain-fed farmers in Odisha.
Under the Shree Anna Abhiyan, a flagship initiative by the Odisha government launched in 2017 to revive millets in the state, WASSAN has undertaken the scientific documentation of the history, cultural significance, and unique agronomic traits of jhati gurji to secure a Geographical Indication (GI) tag. Since there is no Minimum Support Price (MSP) for little millet in Odisha, many farmers are shifting to other crops like paddy and maize. “The lack of proper documentation and research on heirloom varieties further threatens their survival,” explains Roy.
Kuber Pradhan, a farmer who has been cultivating jhati gurji for over 15 years and serves as a community resource person with the Maa Suradei Farmer Producer Organisation in Komna block, is proud to support the GI tag application process. “A GI tag will validate the crop’s authenticity, promote tribal cultural heritage, and boost the market value of jhati gurji,” he says.
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“Little millet has a long-standing history in Odisha and is an integral part of the state’s cultural heritage,” says Arabinda Kumar Padhee, Principal Secretary, Department of Agriculture and Farmers’ Empowerment, Government of Odisha. He highlighted that western Odisha—encompassing the hilly regions of the Eastern Ghats and the Chota Nagpur Plateau—is believed to be one of the earliest centres of little millet domestication in the world, dating back to around 4000 BC.
The grain was domesticated in the Eastern Ghats of India and spread to Sri Lanka, Nepal, and Myanmar. Evidence of little millet cultivation was found in the Indus Valley Civilisation of Harappa around 2600 BC. Millets, therefore, were a staple in the diet of one of the world’s earliest urban civilisations. In the excavations of Oriyo Timbo in the Bhavnagar district of Gujarat, 77% of the seeds were found to be of millets, including little millet, dating to 2000-1500 BC. Similarly, evidence of little millet was also found at the Hallur archaeological site, located in the Haveri district of Karnataka, dating back to approximately 1800 BC. This place is also known as South India’s earliest Iron Age site.
Little millet thrives in both tropical and temperate climates and can be cultivated at altitudes of up to 2,000 metres above sea level in India. It requires moderate rainfall, growing well in regions that receive between 250 and 600 mm annually, and can also adapt to areas receiving rainfall as high as 1,500 mm. Additionally, little millet can tolerate moderate levels of soil salinity and alkalinity.
Several studies have highlighted the strong climate resilience of little millet. For example, under drought conditions, the crop exhibits increased root length and reduced shoot length—an adaptive trait that enhances its ability to access water and survive dry spells.
Also read: For Odisha’s Chuktia Bhunjias, preservation by drying is tradition—and sustenance
Little millet is known by various names across India—sama in Bengali, suan in Odia, kutki in Hindi, gajro in Gujarati and Kannada, sava in Marathi, swank in Punjabi, samai in Tamil, and samalu in Telugu. The states majorly producing little millet include Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, and Gujarat. Though more recent data about the grain remains scant, the total area under cultivation as of 2015-16 was 2.34 lakh ha with production of 1.27 lakh tonnes.
In Odisha, little millet is primarily grown in the hilly areas of tribal-populated districts, such as Koraput, Malkangiri, Nuapada, Rayagada, Kalahandi, and Kandhamal. In 2023, the Odisha government announced plans to launch a benchmark price for little millet and other millets outside the ambit of MSP, terming the price as being “the equivalent of MSP”. Two years since, the fate of the little millet has not changed. Despite the government promoting millets as climate-smart and nutritious crops, most varieties—besides ragi, sorghum and pearl millet—are still not included in the Minimum Support Price (MSP).
In both Mandla and Dindori districts, little millet has been included in the meals served to preschool children at Anganwadi centres, as part of the state’s initiative to promote millets for improved nutrition.
Chhattisgarh is the only state that offers MSP for little millet. The Chhattisgarh Millet Mission—launched by the Government of Chhattisgarh in September 2021, with the vision of making the state the millet hub of India—is an initiative that primarily focuses on promoting the cultivation of kodo millet, little millet, and finger millet across 85 blocks in 20 districts of the state, with a budget outlay of ₹170 crore from 2021 to 2026. In 2021, the state declared ₹33.77 per kilogram of little millet as MSP.
In Madhya Pradesh, little millet is predominantly cultivated by the Gond and Baiga tribes across several districts, including Dindori, Mandla, Umaria, Chhindwara, Anuppur, Shahdol, and Sidhi. Among these, Mandla has emerged as a major production hub for both kutki and kodo millet. The district has also been designated as the ‘One District One Product’ for millets under the Pradhan Mantri Formalisation of Micro Food Processing Enterprises scheme of the Government of India. In both Mandla and Dindori districts, little millet has been included in the meals served to preschool children at Anganwadi centres, as part of the state’s initiative to promote millets for improved nutrition.
In northern India, the grain is commonly consumed as ‘vrat ka chawal’—or food consumed when observing a fast. It is known to sustain energy and reduce hunger over time, as it releases glucose gradually. In Odisha, little millet is often referred to as a “cooling grain” because of its ability to regulate body temperature and help prevent heat-related illnesses during the hot summer months.
Tiny and round in shape, little millet is one of the smallest grains among the different millet varieties, but it packs a powerful nutritional punch. According to the Indian Institute of Millet Research, 100 grams of little millet contain 7.7 grams of protein, 7.6 grams of dietary fibre, 1.5 grams of minerals, 9.3 mg of iron, and 17 mg of calcium.
Little millet is rich in antioxidants such as tannins and flavonoids, which help protect against lifestyle-related diseases like diabetes and cardiovascular conditions. It has a low glycemic index and is high in dietary fibre, which means it releases glucose slowly into the bloodstream, helping maintain stable blood sugar levels. The grain also contains phytochemicals known for their anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer properties. It is a good source of magnesium, which supports heart health, and niacin (Vitamin B3), which helps lower cholesterol levels. Its phosphorus content aids in tissue repair, energy production, and weight management, particularly after physical exertion.
“Little millet helps detoxify the body,” says Dr. Srikanta Dhar, a medicine specialist at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Bhubaneswar. Its high water-soluble fibre content promotes satiety, delays gastric emptying, and supports weight loss. Naturally gluten-free, it is also an ideal grain for people with celiac disease or those seeking gluten-free alternatives.
Also read: One Odisha woman’s mission to preserve taste, tradition through seeds
The little millet has been “a neglected crop despite its climate resilience, nutritional value, and genetic diversity,” says Uday Kumar Nagubandi, Program Manager, Sustainable Seed Systems at the Centre for Sustainable Agriculture, a Hyderabad-based NGO working in Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Sikkim, Telangana, Tripura, and Punjab towards establishing economically and ecologically sustainable agriculture. From the 1980s to 2020, over 150 varieties of little millet—distinct seed samples representing specific cultivars—have been documented by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and the National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources (NBPGR). However, much of this diversity has gradually disappeared from the agricultural landscape, especially over the last two decades, according to Nagubandi, owing to shifting cropping patterns, market preferences, and policy support favouring rice and wheat. Traditional varieties of millets disappeared from farmers’ fields, especially in central and eastern India, due to a lack of incentives and seed system support.
Processing of little millet is also challenging. The grain has an outer husk that needs to be removed, making it a tedious post-harvesting process.
“We need to recognise little millet as a Neglected and Underutilised Crop Species (NUS) and bring it under the ambit of programmes like the All India Coordinated Research Project,” Nagubandi suggests. The All India Coordinated Research Projects (AICRP) are flagship initiatives of ICAR, launched in the 1960s, to conduct multi-location, multidisciplinary research on specific crops and agricultural challenges. Each AICRP focuses on a crop (like rice, wheat, maize, millets) or theme (like dryland farming, agroforestry), and operates through a network of research centres across agro-climatic zones. In the past, AICRP has significantly contributed to the development of 4,365 varieties of field crops. “There is also a need for region-specific research, farmer-led seed conservation efforts, MSP provisions, and integration into agroforestry systems to bring little millet back into mainstream farming,” Nagubandi adds.
“Crop diversity is key,” emphasises Naresh Biswas, founder of Nirman, an NGO working with the Baiga tribe on ecological farming through the revival of indigenous seeds in the Mandla district of Madhya Pradesh. Instead of monocropping, little millet should be grown as part of intercropping systems along with other millets, pulses, and cereals—a sustainable practice followed by tribal communities for generations, he emphasises. Nirman has promoted the same in Mandla.
Processing of little millet is also challenging. The grain has an outer husk that needs to be removed, making it a tedious post-harvesting process. “Since the grain size is small, isolating little millet from stones, pebbles, and other dust particles is a labour-intensive task for women. Traditionally, they spend hours segregating grain through winnowing in a bamboo tray,” says Biranchi Narayan Mahaptra, Executive Secretary, CPSW, an NGO promoting millets with the support of Shree Anna Abhiyan in Nuapada and Komna blocks. There is an urgent need to develop efficient processing machinery for little millet that is women-friendly, he highlights.
While millets are widely promoted as climate-resilient crops, farmers are increasingly reporting reduced yields in the face of changing climatic conditions. “Rising temperatures and erratic rainfall patterns are affecting millet productivity,” says Jitendra Kumar Kar, Senior Programme Officer at WASSAN, Bhubaneswar. He emphasises the need for focused, participatory research to understand the impacts of climate change on millets. “Such studies must engage tribal farmers, local civil society organisations, and academic institutions,” says Kar, who coordinates the Coalition for Food Systems Transformation in India (CoFTI), a multi-stakeholder panel advocating for indigenous and tribal food cultures, forest knowledge, and agroecology.
An example of a traditional local tribal song on jhati gurji from Odisha’s Nuapada district:
Kisan bhai ho (Oh brother farmers)
Jhati gurji karmu chash (Let us cultivate jhati gurji)
Jhati gurji karmu chash (Let us cultivate jhati gurji)
Khaimu boli karichu aash (We are hoping to eat it)
Khaimu boli karichu aash. (We are hoping to eat it)
Gurji bhitre, gurji bhitre (Among the little millet, among the little millet)
Jhati gurji sabuthanu far (Jhati gurji is the best)
Jhati gurji sabuthanu far (Jhati gurji is the best)
Kisan bhai ho (Oh brother farmers)
Jhati gurji karmu chash (We will cultivate jhati gurji)
Jhati gurji karmu chash. (We will cultivate jhati gurji)
Amar pitrupita khaichan jhati gurji (Our forefathers have eaten jhati gurji)
Amar pitrupita khaichan jhati gurji (Our forefathers have eaten jhati gurji)
Ame bisa khaimu jhati gurji (We will also eat jhati gurji)
Ame bisa khaimu jhati gurji. (We will also eat jhati gurji)
Kisan bhai ho (Oh brother farmers)
Jhati gurji karmu chash (We will cultivate jhati gurji)
Jhati gurji karmu chash. (We will cultivate jhati gurji)
Also read: In rural Odisha, the Juang community’s seeds are gifts from ancestors
Images by Abhijit Mohanty
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“This is mani-muni (Indian pennywort),” says 16-year-old Anju, plucking a ground cover plant with small, round leaflets. “We crush its leaves and drink the juice; it’s good for digestion.” On Assam’s river island of Majuli, in the Chilakela village, Anju and five of her friends, aged 10 to 18, helped us forage ten different edible plants growing within a few feet of their homes.
Together, we cooked these foraged greens and fried fish caught from the pond behind Anju’s house, and ate it all with farm-grown rice and vegetables, homemade ber achar (jujube pickle), and masoor dal—the only item sourced from the market.
As part of an Agroecology course, I’d chosen Majuli for my field immersion (agroecology takes an ecology approach to farming, promoting sustainable use of resources and the empowerment of farmers). My classmates and I centred our fieldwork on two of Majuli’s 243 villages: Chilakela (pronounced ‘Seelakola’), a primarily Assamese village, and Malapindha, a Mising tribal village where our host organisation, Ayang Trust, works. What we found were gracious teachers of agroecology in the very homes we visited—everyday farmers living the principles we’d only studied in the coursework thus far.
After our meal at Anju’s home, the leftovers were devoured by ducks, chickens, cows, goats—even pigs—moving about freely around the homes. Each family reared at least two to three types of livestock. Their dung naturally fertilised the soil, completing a nutrient loop that would make any permaculture designer proud. Such cycles of transformation were unfolding around us all the time. In March, when we visited, the broad pathars (fields) were open grazing grounds, dotted with cattle and goats. By April, they would transform into lush, green paddy fields.
Majuli, located on the mighty Brahmaputra, is the largest river island in the world. It remains in a state of constant flux as the Brahmaputra and its tributaries (Subansiri) dance around it, eroding and depositing sediment as they flow.
As climate change makes weather on the island intense and less predictable, it leads to changing relationships with farming, even as native varieties lend a great deal of resilience against seasonal floods. Chilakela and Malapindha, in particular, are less erosion prone. Still, villagers can feel the shift; for example, mustard is no longer grown where it used to, as the soil is more wet now.
This is agroecology in action: systems built on biodiversity, requiring little external inputs, and resilient to changing conditions.
Government data suggests that roughly 90% of the island’s population is dependent on agriculture, much of which remains sustenance-oriented. Farms are typically small or marginal, with paddy being the preferred crop of choice alongside other major crops like black gram.
“Our ancestors used to say ‘Kheti karo kaal bam’—farm the land, through ups and downs,” says Madhav, a community leader in his 30s with an entrepreneurial streak, “If all paddy was cultivated only in low-lying regions, then we could lose yield in the event of an intense flood. That’s why we plant many varieties on different types of land,” he adds. “Hali dhan like basmati, jangia, and joha are cultivated upland, while in the low-lying areas, we sow Bau dhan like negheri, kolio, and amona. Bau dhan can grow up to 8–10 feet tall, so even in deep floods, we are still able to achieve a harvest.”
This is agroecology in action: systems built on biodiversity, requiring little external inputs, and resilient to changing conditions. This resilience also shapes the community's nutrient-dense diets. Most families consume a wide diversity of foods daily: cereals and tubers, pulses, leafy greens, vegetables, and meat. Fruits like ber and seeds like pumpkin featured often in the meals we tracked. Nearly everything was grown or foraged locally. Every home was surrounded by 30–40 plant species—trees, shrubs, herbs—some cultivated, many wild, all useful: edible, medicinal, timber, aesthetic. This is true food sovereignty, the kind most consumers can only dream of.
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Poroshmita, a 20-year-old Assamese woman from the Chilakela village, has decided to delay her marriage by 2–3 years. “I’ve prioritised saving money first,” she says, as she shows us the pickles, embroidered sarees, crochet work and stitched clothes she sells to earn a living, “At least Rs 1–2 lakh is needed to cover wedding expenses.” Weddings, funerals, and festivals—once modest occasions—now come with heavy financial burdens. The price of everyday living, too, has risen. Traditional bamboo-and-mud houses are being replaced with pakka cement structures. “To build a decent house, you need Rs 10–20 lakh,” says Madhav. “In 70% of households, at least one son is working in Coimbatore, Hyderabad, or Chennai.”
Though villages like Malapindha and Chilakela have remained self-sufficient in terms of food production, the rising costs of gadgets like phones, vehicles, and private education in particular are pressing. “My sons attend a private school,” says Rezu, a diligent farmer in his 40s. “The annual fees alone are 1.5 lakh. Then the costs of books, hostel stays, transport… I sell my goats, cows, and fish whenever I need cash.”
Despite easy marketing, hybrid varieties lacked taste and resilience, and have earned limited favour in Majuli.
In the nearby flood-prone village of Bhakat Chapori, government-backed commercial farming has taken hold over the past five years. “These crops need a lot of care,” says 40-year-old Anil, as he stands in a field gleaming with black plastic mulch (to retain moisture and prevent weeds from growing). On one side, a thousand bhut jolokias (ghost pepper chillies). On the other, watermelons. “See this discoloration?” he says, pointing to a leaf, “This deficiency can only be fixed by chemical fertilisers.”
Under a brand-new solar pump on Anil’s farm, sat rows of plastic bottles—one of them containing Roundup, a herbicide restricted or banned in many countries for its carcinogenic effects. When asked about his earnings, Anil says, “Sometimes a lot, sometimes nothing. Last year, I put in Rs 5 lakh and earned Rs 12 lakh.”
Despite easy marketing, hybrid varieties lacked taste and resilience, and have earned limited favour in Majuli. As he points to a hybrid variety of guava, Madhav underscores how trees like it have been ‘created’. “They won’t grow without chemicals.” As it is true across the world, high yield crops cultivated on this island, too, require a high degree of inputs. “If a goat eats a leaf, the plant dies. Our local guava? It survives and keeps growing.”
Rajib, a middle-aged farmer based in Malapindha, shows us two brinjal patches growing side-by-side—one local, one hybrid. “I sowed them at the same time,” he says. The hybrid plants had barely germinated while the local ones flourished. Hybrids also needed more water in Majuli’s relatively dry winter—a major constraint.
“I grow hybrid varieties to sell in the market and earn an income,” says Sumonto Boruah, a seasoned, middle-aged farmer, “But at home, we prefer to eat our local variety of bitter gourd—it’s tastier!” In a small market survey we conducted in Garmur, a district town in Majuli, with inputs from 60 respondents, customers unanimously preferred local produce. “I don’t buy off-season vegetables,” one buyer told us, “They’re not good for us. Local, fresh vegetables and greens are like medicine.”
To enable better incomes and earning potential, our host NGO Ayang Trust supports Lekope, a farmer-producer organisation which works with 3000 farmers to market local crops like black rice, joha rice and foxtail millet. This millet has nearly vanished due to its laborious processing, despite its high nutritional value. Now, thanks to Lakope’s orders, a handful of farmers have started reintroducing it. Ayang also trains women to make pickles, cakes, and chips, helping them start small enterprises.
Also read: In the battle of Alphonso versus Kesar, climate change plays dirty
Madhav is of the opinion that Majuli’s socio-economic backwardness stems from the failure to market what is local and abundant. “We’ve failed to market our own products,” he rues. To test whether local vegetables could find buyers, our student group sourced surplus pumpkins, gourds, and a rainbow of greens from the homes we visited and set up a small stall in Garmur.
Many customers we encountered had their own backyard gardens, but there was a significant minority that did not have space or time, who purchased most of our produce. “I’m happy to pay Rs 500 weekly for hygienically produced, organic groceries,” says Bipen, a middle-aged white-collar professional. Our investment of Rs 1800 resulted in a Rs 500 profit—a modest but meaningful sign of potential.
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The reality unfolding in Majuli can be explained against the larger context of trends observed across India. Farming itself has become economically unviable for many farmers. “Primary productivity is declining [due to loss of soil fertility and ground water]. Meanwhile, farmers face rising costs due to privatised education and healthcare, making cash incomes a necessity. Yet, agriculture receives only 2.7% of the national budget, largely as Direct Benefit Transfers. These do little to build shared assets like watershed systems that could support long-term climate resilience,” says Dr Dinesh Abrol, a policy expert who held forth on the subject during one of our course lectures. The result is a system where farmers bear the burden, but decisions—about factors like seeds and subsidies—are shaped by a government-corporate nexus far removed from the field.
Also read: GFM's photostory on ancient Pokkali fields in decline
The push to commercialise agriculture has also come at a cost to nutritional self-sufficiency. “We’ve become dependent on imports for oilseeds and pulses,” notes Dr Richa Kumar, an associate professor at IIT Delhi who researches agriculture and nutrition. “Today, over half of our pulses and oilseeds are imported. This is because the government procures rice and wheat at scale but doesn’t prioritise other crops,” she shares. Ironically, even these staples are declining in quality. A 2023 study by Debnath et al. says that the, “nutrients profile [of modern rice and wheat] shows a downward trend in concentrations of essential and beneficial elements, but an upward [trend] in toxic elements in [the] past 50 y[ears].”
Ayang Trust has attempted to support Majuli’s farmers if they opt for high-value, high-yielding vegetables and non-local fruits. Dharamjeet, the livelihoods coordinator at the NGO, says that this support has been offered keeping in mind what the future may bring for Majuli. “Soon, there will be a highway and a bridge passing through these villages, connecting Majuli to Arunachal. Industries and rice mills will follow, there will be massive land grabs,” he warns, “What will farmers have to hold on to their land?” From our conversations with the NGO and our field visits, it was clear that their intervention—introducing Tezpur litchi and L49 guava—had only a lukewarm impact. This reflects a pattern: relying on non-native, high-input, market-oriented varieties instead of finding innovations that would secure fair prices for indigenous, nutritious crops.
Majuli, buffered by its inaccessibility and strong food culture, has held on. Reachable only by ferry, it has not yet been exposed to the takeover of supermarket culture or the presence of MNCs, or even the food procurement regimes that mainland areas are accustomed to. For context, electricity reached the village of Chilakela in 2010. But the change is seeping in. In Chilakela, we laid out local seeds before children aged 4 to 19. Only Radhika, age 9, could name them all. Most couldn’t tell a pumpkin from a sponge gourd, or distinguish between the small and large varieties of ridge gourd. Even Paban, a sharp 20-year-old, struggled to identify the rice varieties his mother cultivates.
“Often the stress and the solution is not in agriculture,” says Anshuman Das, a Lead Expert in agroecology and food systems at aid agency Welthungerhilfe. “We have to zoom out… If the need of the community in Majuli’s villages is better education, we need to address this. This is a part of agroecology—to enable the community to take part in decision-making mechanisms. They may have to participate in gram panchayat development planning, engage in advocacy with their government bodies for better education and health care,” he says.
Right now, no one tells the people of Majuli that their food systems—local, resilient, and deeply nourishing—are worth emulating.
Across India, several experiments are underway to restore lands damaged by chemical farming, revive indigenous seeds, and build fairer markets for farmers. But for these efforts to truly take root, our institutions and social imagination must value the promise rural India holds. Right now, no one tells the people of Majuli that their food systems—local, resilient, and deeply nourishing—are worth emulating. Instead, agricultural universities promote chemical sprays for fragile hybrid varieties. And yet, quietly, the people of Majuli carry on, saving seeds, sharing knowledge, and honouring food with celebration.
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Editor’s note: The last two decades have been witness to the rapid and devastating march of unchecked urbanisation and climate change in India’s cities. Among the first victims of this change is freshwater and access to it—from rivers which sustained local ecosystems, to lakes and groundwater which quenched the thirst of residents. In this series, the Good Food Movement examines the everyday realities of neglect and pollution. It documents the vanishing and revival of water bodies, and community action that made a difference.
The sweat on your brow, the dew on a leaf, the droplets lingering on your umbrella—all evaporate, condense into clouds, and return to the Earth as rain. They make themselves at home in rivers, seas, wells, aquifers and the like. Ultimately, they make their way back to you, flowing from the taps you use to wash your face, to the streams you dip your feet into. The story of the water cycle is the story of the oldest, most consistent system of recycling this essential natural resource.
As the 1970s rolled around, the climate crisis really unveiled itself. This is when reusing water became an environmentally conscious thing to do. But long before that, people in Greece, Yemen, and closer home in the Indus Valley had the same idea: they were also connecting homes to drains, and drains to sewers, and sewers to agricultural fields. Such sanitation practices stayed relevant, and in fact, proved all the more important after several water-borne epidemics ravaged parts of the world. In the mid-19th century, for instance, European cities were planned in a way that the urban sewage would drain into nearby agricultural land, aptly named 'sewage farms'. But eventually, the growing density of populations and the increase in human settlements reduced the land available for agriculture, and other avenues had to be found to get rid of wastewater and sewage. Herein emerged septic tanks, contact beds, and trickling filters (the latter two use layers of microbes to filter and clean water) that allowed treated wastewater to be directly fed to freshwater sources.
The return of recycled water is owed to various factors, but it mainly ties into pollution, our depleting groundwater sources, increasingly irregular weather, and the growing fear that we might run out of water.
In the 20th century, these technologies became sophisticated, and one could now recycle large volumes of water in compact spaces. Urban areas spilled into rural ones, and the need to move wastewater to agricultural lands shrunk. The idea of reclaiming nutrients from used water for farming became arcane.
Now, we are inching back towards exploring the potential of recycled water. In late 2019, Chennai launched two Tertiary Treatment Reverse Osmosis (TTRO) plants that purify sewage water to the same quality as raw freshwater. In the town of Devanahalli, Karnataka, thousands have been receiving recycled drinking water since August 2023. In its annual civic budget for 2025-26, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) allocated Rs 5,545 crore for constructing seven advanced tertiary treatment plants (ATTPs) in Mumbai, which serve the same purpose.
The return of recycled water is owed to various factors, but it mainly ties into pollution, our depleting groundwater sources, increasingly irregular weather, and the growing fear that we might run out of water.
Also read: Bengaluru is fated to run out of water. When will the crisis hit?
Turn the tap, turn it back. Water gushes and retreats like magic, and we never pause to decode the magician's trick. Where does the water come from? Well, it depends on where you come from. In their paper published in 2015, researchers Mihir Shah and Himanshu Kulkarni proposed a 6 x 4 matrix to understand a city's relationship with its water.
Imagine a city as a cell: we start with a small nucleus (stage I), the centre of development. The cell grows (stage II) and expands (stage III) into suburbs and peri-urban areas. Finally, some cities either expand their boundaries significantly or merge with a satellite city (stage IV). These 4 stages comprise the first axis of this matrix. At each stage, the water supply system morphs and builds upon its former self. While a growing township starts out relying on private wells and borewells, as it grows it formalises into a system of pipelines and tankers.
However, water infrastructure in India tends not to catch up with expanding cities. The nucleus continues to receive formally established public water supply, while suburbs tend to source water privately through tankers, and those on the very periphery may continue getting their water from private borewells.
For example, in Bengaluru, large parts of the city receive either Kaveri water or groundwater through the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB). However, the BWSSB does not yet have a presence in the periphery of the city, where residents instead turn towards private tankers or local borewells. Similarly, one’s socio-economic strata plays a role in water access. A slum's notified or unnotified status dictates its access to BWSSB supplies, even if it is located in an area with the requisite infrastructure.
The other axis of this matrix documents six geological classifications of aquifers—underground layers of rock that can store groundwater, like natural reservoirs—in India based on their quality and capacity to transmit and store water. For example, in the Himalayan ranges, aquifers flow across several villages and towns, while most of south India has crystalline rock that has low storage capacity.
The BWSSB currently has 33 STP plants that treat around 1350 million litres of sewage daily before emptying it into storm water drains.
Ultimately, whether in pipes or through tankers, your water comes from rivers, lakes, or wells fed by rivers and lakes. Once it goes down your drain, this water changes its identity, having now become dirty from the processes of cleaning it was used for. In areas where the municipal sewerage board supplies water, it also takes responsibility for the sewerage—by and large. Apartments over 120 units in BWSSB sewerage networks and apartments over 20 units outside of BWSSB sewerage networks are responsible for installing their own Sewage Treatment Plants or STPs.
The BWSSB currently has 33 STP plants that treat around 1350 million litres of sewage daily before emptying it into storm water drains. Apartments, however, are mandated to reuse the treated wastewater. Predominantly, this water is used for flushing and landscaping. Senior hydrologist at WELL Labs, Shashank Palur, shares that excess recycled water is often illegally discarded into storm water drains, too. However, last year during the water shortage in Bengaluru, the Bangalore Apartments’ Federation (BAF) convinced the Environmental Ministry to allow apartments to offer up to 50% of their treated wastewater on sale, provided that they use the remaining half.
To be fit for gardening and flushing, water undergoes two levels of treatment. At the primary level, machinery is used to break down large particles and then separate out particulate matter through sedimentation. At the secondary level, microbes are used to digest organic contaminants like nitrates. The latter is a dynamic process, requiring constant supervision. "That's where the most maintenance and operational cost is," explains Shashank Palur.
However, there is only so much water that can be used for gardening and flushing. A survey of over 200 apartments by Boson Whitewater found that only 20% of recycled water is used for non-potable purposes. The rest is usually discarded or, if permitted, resold.
If we want to do more with our wastewater, we need to treat it further. Most STPs set up by apartments are only capable of secondary treatment of wastewater. The next round is cost-intensive, and requires added, trained personnel. Charcoal or sand filters are considered the baseline for any tertiary treatment, but they are often supplemented with reverse osmosis (RO), ultrafiltration (UF), ultraviolet light (UV), and chlorination. Each of these methods target different kinds of impurities, and are often used in conjunction with each other. For example, chlorine and charcoal filters are often paired together in water purification systems. Chlorine effectively removes most bacteria and viruses, but is itself harmful for us in large amounts; charcoal filters effectively remove chemicals like chlorine, thus protecting from the negative byproducts created during the purification process. But the silver bullet of water purification is RO: it removes everything, from viruses to dissolved solids and even the natural minerals of water, resulting, practically, in distilled water. Most RO filters are accompanied by a mineral bed to add back necessary minerals into drinking water.
These internal variations in any tertiary treatment process mean that tertiary treated water cannot automatically be declared potable—it needs to be tested to meet certain requirements and safety standards.
However, public animosity to the idea of treated wastewater comes from more than just the ‘yuck’ factor felt while drinking it.
At the national level, the Union Ministry for Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution sets guidelines through the Bureau of Indian Standards. Currently, two standards pertain to drinking water: IS 10500:2012, and IS 17482:2020. The former pertains to drinking water quality specifications, while the latter covers the management of drinking water supply systems.
The BIS 10500 tests water for 6 physical characteristics, 24 chemicals, and 12 toxic substances. Moreover, water must also be tested for radioactive substances and pesticides. For most parameters there is an acceptable limit for these characteristics, and a permissible limit in the absence of alternate sources. For some parameters, like radioactive substances, there is no relaxation even in the absence of an alternate source. If water quality is below the acceptable limit, then despite the absence of alternate sources, that source should not be used to supply drinking water anymore.
However, the BIS is a standard and not a law. This means that while a conscientious supplier can obtain a certificate proving the quality of water supplied, it cannot be enforced for all suppliers. This lack of enforceability is exacerbated by the fact that water supply is a State subject. While the Centre can nudge the states in a certain direction (as the Jal Jeevan Mission does), it must leave enforcement in the hands of individual states. More recently, the government has also released the draft of the Liquid Wastewater Management Draft (effective from October 2025) which includes expected percentage of wastewater reuse for various kinds of establishments.
Also read: In Gurugram’s rise, a cautionary tale about satellite cities and groundwater
Two roads diverge in a yellow wood, and potable treated water cannot travel both. The choice, in this case, lies between Direct Potable Reuse (DPR), and Indirect Potable Reuse (IPR).
Direct Potable Reuse is when the water goes through primary, secondary, and tertiary treatment and is directly piped into the water supply system after spending a meagre 24 hours in a man-made environmental buffer. As a drought-prone country, Namibia was one of the first countries to embrace direct potable reuse through the Goreangab Water Reclamation Plant in Windhoek. Since its inception in 1968, residents have reported no adverse health effects from the consumption of recycled water. Yet, DPR has had to make way for its more popular sibling, the IPR.
There are different ways to embark on Indirect Potable Reuse, but by definition, they all involve a natural environmental buffer. The idea is to naturalise water by mixing it with sources of ground or surface water, as well as rain. Sewage water supplied by Chennai city is currently emptied into lakes after treatment and then pulled out for water supply. Palur shares how this is, in fact, counterproductive. "It is known that the quality of water right out of the STP is way better than what comes out of the lake, because the lake has some legacy contamination. That's why, again, they have to put up a water treatment plant next to the lake which pumps the water in and then sends it to people."
This extra step is a response to public discomfort with the idea of drinking treated wastewater; most administrators find it easier to placate people by undertaking an additional level of treatment from the environmental buffer rather than attempting to supply treated water directly. This explains why IPR projects are found far more commonly than their DPR counterparts—even though generally, it is more expensive to treat wastewater through this process.
However, the Devanahalli town of Karnataka has found a more purposeful way of undertaking indirect potable reuse. Its municipality has married the causes of recycled water with lake and aquifer rejuvenation. Diluted treated wastewater is first introduced into Bagalur lake, then rediluted in Sihi Neerukere, and lastly diluted by the earth when it enters the well. Then it goes through a water treatment plant before entering the water supply system. However, for such an indirect potable reuse system to work, there is one non-negotiable requirement: clean lakes and wells. The first thing the Devanahalli municipality did was to clean its lakes and wells, such that it can receive treated wastewater and dilute it with clean surface water and rainwater. Now, multiple tests have attested that Devanahalli’s treated water complies with BIS 10500 standards.
This extra step is a response to public discomfort with the idea of drinking treated wastewater; most administrators find it easier to placate people by undertaking an additional level of treatment from the environmental buffer rather than attempting to supply treated water directly.
“The water that the Devanahalli town was supplying to the town before did not meet drinking water standards, because there was no choice. But now, we are making sure that it is meeting drinking water standards,” shares Vishwanath S, director of Biome Environmental Trust, who provided technical knowledge to the Devanahalli town municipal corporation for this project.
Worldwide, across multiple projects, public response has been a big make-or-break factor in treating and consuming treated water. It only makes sense that the WHO 2017 guidelines have a separate section dedicated to ‘The Art of Public Engagement’ with real-life case studies in tow.
However, public animosity to the idea of treated wastewater comes from more than just the ‘yuck’ factor felt while drinking it. There have been, for instance, plenty of reports detailing the emptying of raw sewage into rivers by STPs, instead of treating it. Small semantic adjustments like calling wastewater ‘used water’ can help with this. But the most obscure obstruction is the lack of public trust in the administration to undertake these processes faithfully, transparently, and correctly. Disillusionment with governments in a policy like this can come at the cost of implementation, and many administrators have had to abandon projects like these. Generally, a policy of transparency is recommended where public backlash is anticipated.
This is where Singapore’s NEWater project took the bull by the horns. In 2003, they introduced a water museum, live tours of the factory through a gallery, and got the political leadership to use their packaged water in public.
In all this, it can help to revisit the philosophy of Dr Lukas van Vuure, one of the pioneers on the Windhoek plant, who is remembered for the quote: “Water should be judged by its quality, not by its history.”
Also read: The intertwined fate of Navi Mumbai’s Kolis and the Kasardi river
Cover art by Prabhakaran S
Produced by Nevin Thomas and Neerja Deodhar
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Editor’s note: To know Rama Ranee is to learn about the power of regenerative practices. The yoga therapist, author and biodynamic farmer spent three decades restoring land in Karnataka, envisioning it as a forest farm in harmony with nature. In ‘The Anemane Dispatch’, a monthly column, she shares tales from the fields, reflections on the realities of farming in an unusual terrain, and stories about local ecology gathered through observation, bird watching—and being.
The first monsoon showers dampened the earth, and we took in the enchanting fragrance of plant oils and streptomyces—petrichor and hope (geosmin, a byproduct of the metabolism of the streptomyces bacteria—an indicator of soil health—adds the earthy note to this bouquet of aromas). Raised planting beds were ready with freshly sown seeds. It was like waiting for the curtain to rise on a grand opening, as this was during the early years of biodynamic farming at Anemane. When the mushrooms emerged and mycelium wove across the beds, they brought with them elation—a validation of our efforts to infuse life into starving soil.
Our tryst with the land began in the 1990s. We were faced with the challenge of regenerating soil that had lived as a scrub forest (a thorny forest home to spiny trees, common to the Deccan), converted into arable land, ravaged by granite quarrying and conventional agriculture. It was not merely the physical scars; it was the irrevocable changes to the chemistry and soul—the life spring.
Sixty years ago, burning down bamboo thickets and vegetation did indeed enrich the soil with wood-ash, releasing nutrients like potassium, phosphorus, and calcium, which boosted food production. It was inevitable that the initial supply of nutrients would deplete, increasing soil alkalinity. With denudation and the loss of green cover, there was a decline in organic matter. The unregulated use of chemical fertilisers further degraded the soil. High inputs of urea increased soil acidity, destroying soil biota. Whether it is high levels of alkalinity or acidity, the soil suffers from a reduced capacity to hold water, support life and crops.
Add to this a generous sprinkling of granite dust from the quarries, and what we had was a grey, ashy medium. Granite quarrying only exacerbated the troubles caused by the loss of green cover, and the resultant dust could potentially contaminate groundwater and affect human health.
While the early farmers in Kasaraguppe, where Anemane is located, managed well with inputs of composted dung, tank bed soil (inputs of composted dung and soil from a desilted tank bed rich in organic matter and bio-mass), their sons had to rely more on ‘government gobbara’ (chemical fertilisers) and Green Revolution methods that demanded increasing quantities of chemical inputs.
The mushrooms in our raised plant beds were the opening chords of a symphony—one that came together note by note, quietly, over a decade. They were indicators of the positive change that had we hoped for. Mycelium generally thrive in a more neutral pH soil and in organic matter which they convert into humus, improving the quality of the soil; higher soil organic matter (SOM) meant better porosity. Livingness was taking hold.
Anemane Farm sits atop a rocky knoll in the Bannerghatta National Park, facing the Suvarnamukhi Hill, with valleys on either side. The undulating land slopes sharply to the east and west, making it susceptible to erosion from wind and rain. The soil depth varies from barely an inch on the hilltop and east, to a few metres in pockets, with a maximum of about six meters in the valley to the east. Measures to prevent erosion were our primary concern.
Tall trees, mainly teak and silver oak, were planted in the interspaces of fields as wind breaks. Close planting made an effective barrier, which was later gradually thinned as the canopies grew wider. While the land had been terraced, there was no vegetation to prevent soil from being washed down the slopes to the west. Contour bunding and planting wind breaks, chiefly local varieties of bamboo and agave like cacti, reduced the impact. The bamboo soon grew into thickets, which made for wonderful homes for babblers, and spur fowls. The cacti seeds, an offering from a friend, were planted much to the disapproval of senior staff member Narasappa, who feared that we were providing shelter to Russell’s vipers. Narasappa was right, but since the cacti were meant to secure the peripheries, no harm was done.
A network of shallow trenches surrounded the fields feeding into larger ones. The bunds were lined with aloe vera and vetiver. Aloe vera, with its shallow and fibrous root system, binds the soil and retains soil moisture, while the leaves store water. Vetiver’s own deep root system conserves soil and promotes infiltration of water. Both are drought-resistant. Fodder grasses, too, contributed to erosion control, lining seepage pits and peripheral trenches.
Trenches were crucial for garnering surface runoff. They served several purposes: top soil carried by the runoff settled at the base as did the water, percolating and gradually recharging the ground water. Leaf litter settled at the bottom turned into a fine compost. The effectiveness of these measures became apparent during periods of drought.
Also read: Farming under the elephant’s nose: Lessons in crop choices
At the deepest point of the valley, which adjoins the forest, there is an open well. It was inspired by a legendary British legacy project that watered vast vineyards and orchards, as well as a water-powered flour mill at Doresanipalya, in south Bengaluru. It simply disappeared after the 1980s, buried in the concrete jungle. Ours was 25 feet in depth and width, a far cry from the 50-feet marvel, as the space and soil type did not permit such extravagance, or did we have a perennial water source. Skilled well-diggers—traditional craftsmen called ‘Mannu Vaddar’ from Punganur, Chittoor—were commissioned. It was lined with hand-dressed stones hewn from the nearly-deserted quarry, perhaps the last project that Perumalappa, the local stone cutter, undertook. The joinery is a work of art!
There was no natural spring to be found. Recharged by ground water from an old pond (Chennammana kunte) upstream, it has a capacity of 2.5 lakh liters, enough to irrigate 2 acres. Incidentally, this transformed the quarry into a deep bowl for harvesting rain water.
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Rain-fed dry land is best served by tanks natural or manmade, a lesson to be learned from Kempegowda, the founder of Bengaluru. Historically, tanks meticulously designed and positioned were a part of the city’s primary source, an element of a larger interconnected water system linked to its lakes and rivers, serving various purposes. Stone-lined step tanks or kalyanis are still in evidence in temples. It was logical to design our own cascading chain of tanks to harvest rain water.
A shallow check dam was constructed at an elevated spot where a monsoon-fed stream ran down from the Suvarnamukhi Hll into our land and piped into the abandoned quarry which transformed into a lifeline, with a capacity of about 8 lakh litres—enough to meet our requirement for 8 to 9 months. Further downstream, smaller quarried hollows were bunded and leakages plugged to serve as rock pools.
Pot-drip irrigation, a traditional method using terracotta pots, ensured a weekly supply of 25 to 30 litres per fruit tree—a mix of lemons, pomegranates, and mangoes. This was a method we imbibed from an NGO in a cyclone-prone, water-scarce region in Andhra Pradesh. It was very effective until elephants made a hobby out of smashing the pots!
Also watch: She turned a barren wasteland into a forest farm in Bengaluru
The processes of building soil organic matter and washing chemical residues went together. For seven years, mulch crops like legumes (black and green gram) and leaf litter were integrated into the soil. During this period, locals grazed their goats, fertilising the land. Farmyard manure of goat dung initially sustained the land until Gange and Gauri, our first pair of cows of the Hallikar breed, arrived. Their presence ushered in momentous changes! They were prolific breeders, too. Soon we had Lakshmaiah, a mustachioed man of courage and grit, strong enough to encounter leopards, grazing 10 heads of cattle on the hill.
The absence of any green cover impelled us to plant fast-growing trees. Apart from indigenous varieties like Honge (Pongamia pinnata), Neem (Azadirachta indica), and Maha-neem (Melia dubia), legumes like Senna spectabilis, nitrogen-fixing trees like Agase (Sesbania grandiflora), Gobbarada mara (Gliricidia sepium), and Subabul (Leucaena leucocephala) were grown selectively for green cover, compost, and fodder for cattle. They were useful in regenerating denuded areas. However, proliferation is a threat, and periodic felling and clearing is necessary to maintain a balance. The lopped wood is used to fill up rocky depressions to build up soil organic matter.
Cow dung and urine are the main inputs for enrichment of the soil. Biodynamic compost augments its potential. Cow Pat Pit (CPP), made mainly from cow-dung, is a rich fertiliser particularly beneficial for root growth. Vermicompost in open pits provides a balanced medium for vegetables and potted plants.
Soon we had Lakshmaiah, a mustachioed man of courage and grit, strong enough to encounter leopards, grazing 10 heads of cattle on the hill.
Biodynamic agriculture, developed by Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner and based on the wisdom of ancient agricultural practices, offers a unique perspective by highlighting the influence of cosmic bodies and the Earth on nutrient cycles essential for vitality and growth. The farm ecosystem is envisaged as a self-sustaining living being. Nourishing the soil through composting, crop rotation, and other natural methods revitalises the plants, farm animals, humans and indeed, the living environment, enriching biodiversity.
Biodynamic mixed leaf compost combines nitrogenous and carbon-rich materials like green leaves, cow dung and dry leaves in the right proportion, inoculated with microdoses of biodynamic preparations. Decomposed through fermentation, sanitised by the actinomycetes bacteria, and further digested by earthworms, it is ideal for most fruits and vegetables. A host of liquid manures and preparations are made and applied in sync with the Earth and cosmic rhythms. Traditional agriculture offers a range of natural growth promoters, manures, disease- and pest-management measures like Jeevamrutham and Panchagavya which we incorporate in our farming methods.
The boundaries are protected from grazing and clearing, facilitating the regeneration of indigenous flora and habitats. Whenever planting was a necessity, local species were preferred. Wild shrubs and bushes are allowed to grow as hedges in the interspaces of fields, functioning as screens to guard the crops from the prying eyes of peacocks and elephants, integrating them into the farm design. Plants of ethno-botanical importance are conserved.
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Biodiversity: Stumbling upon a lone Pink Nodding orchid (Geodorum densiflorum) in a rocky patch for the first time was a revelation. Months later, whole clusters were discovered on a moist, leaf-littered slope keeping company with Dead Man’s Fingers (Xylaria polymorpha) under a dense canopy, where it continues to thrive. This terrestrial orchid does occur in the forests of Bannerghatta, but its abundance could imply a revitalised ecosystem—the transition from a disturbed landscape to a more stable, moist deciduous and evergreen type of habitat. The orchid’s symbiotic relationship with endophytic and mycorrhizal fungi indicates their presence, which is possible only in a healthy and balanced ecosystem. In-situ conservation gave them a reprieve from over-exploitation and threat due to habitat loss.
Species richness and abundance are clear signs of regeneration. Three decades ago, there were all of two trees—one Cluster Fig (Ficus Racemosa), and one White Bark Acacia (Vachellia leucophloea). Today, we have a diverse flora of 200 native species, of which 36 are trees. Among them are Jaalari (Shorea roxburghii) and Alale (Terminalia Chebula), climax species and mature guardians of a stable ecosystem. Climax species support high biodiversity and deliver crucial ecosystem services like carbon sequestration, nutrient cycling, and water regulation.
The mushrooms in our raised plant beds were the opening chords of a symphony—one that came together note by note, quietly, over a decade.
The land is blessed with weeds, or ‘children of Mother Earth’ as we call them. They constitute much of our 85 wild edibles, the rest being a mixed basket of shoots, berries, roots and mushrooms, valued for their healing and nourishing properties. A few plants of culinary and medicinal importance, such as Makali beru or Swallow root (Decalepis hamiltonii) are propagated. The Swallow root is significant as this is an endemic and endangered climbing shrub which grows naturally in rocky crevices and is threatened due to loss of habitat and over exploitation.
Rewilding has been instrumental in creating a bridge for larger mammals such as elephants and leopards, and habitats for birds (167 species have been recorded thus far), reptiles, small mammals, as well as a plethora of insects—ants, wasps, and beetles among them, a part of our extended family. Each play a role in sustaining the balance and overall health of the farm.
The Indian Screw tree (Helicteres isora), a deciduous forest species, grows in moist places. These shrubs began to appear with increasing moisture in the valley, possibly through the agency of nectar-loving birds like Purple-rumped Sunbirds of which it is a host. The birds, in turn, pollinate and disperse seeds. Positive relationships such as these augur well for regeneration.
When daily farm-walks began to reveal busy lady bird beetles, jumping spiders and parasitoid wasps clumping earth balls for their nests, and at times whisking away unwary caterpillars; ponds teeming with frogs, snakes and turtles; insect eating birds, and raptors as well, it was clear we had able partners in ‘pest’ management, which made aggressive measures unnecessary. It is an ecosystem service provided naturally in a biodiverse landscape.
Soil: The first signs of soil coming to life are the colour and texture; it has progressively darkened with humus, is moist, loose, and crumbly. It feels slippery to the touch with good aggregation, a beneficial environment for micro- and macro-organisms. Earthworms, once scarce, are everywhere. Fine hyphae interweave with the roots—signs of mycorrhizal fungi. Plants grow deep, strong, and disease-resistant, requiring minimal intervention.
Our fresh produce tastes better and has a longer shelf life. On a bright winter evening in the early years of Anemane, while our sons were rolling in the sand pit, our staff member Maya and her husband proudly offered a bunch of carrots and freshly-harvested spinach—our first attempt at vegetable gardening. The carrots were gnarled and woody, and though we tried to make excuses about the seeds being bad, the spinach was as bitter as neem! Over time, the carrots turned sweeter and looked less like tree barks. And the spinach finally tasted like spinach. By the year 2016, the soil was neutral to slightly acidic, with a pH of 6.68.
Water: A notable change in this decade is that the land sustains low rainfall much better. Drought-related mortality of trees has declined, while the recovery from stress is much better, with fewer casualties even in our orchards. The percolation of groundwater is reflected in the muddy water of the well soon after rains, which gradually turns a milky blue once the silt settles. Summer is always a challenge, but the well sees us through. The borewell shaft, though disused, holds more water than before. While reviewing its viability, the images captured on the camera inserted in the shaft revealed water level at 80 feet, and an inflow from a crevice, possibly a spring, fed by seepage in the fractures. The borewell was declared to be viable and sufficient for domestic use by experts! Earlier, it was abandoned due to low output.
As an extractive industry, agriculture exacerbates climate change and the loss of biodiversity due to high resource inputs (water, energy, and chemicals), deforestation, and emissions of greenhouse gases, methane and carbon dioxide. Gaia, the Earth goddess in Greek mythology, is better served by regenerative practices that are in sync with local conditions and ecology; this is our ethos at Anemane. Our proximity to the Bannerghatta National Park, an endangered scrub forest and a crucial watershed vulnerable to urbanisation, reinforces the need for a conscious, holistic approach.
Over time, the carrots turned sweeter and looked less like tree barks. And the spinach finally tasted like spinach. By the year 2016, the soil was neutral to slightly acidic, with a pH of 6.68.
We are encouraged by changes, subtle or palpable, because they manifest a shift towards a more stable ecosystem that is self-sustaining. The Gaian hypothesis recognises the Earth as a complex living system. The ‘farm-being’ is more than a patch of land. She is a symphony—rich, complex, and sublime. The melody that weaves through her inner processes is not always perceptible to those accustomed to seeing her parts. What we can sense and connect with is her soul, and thereby address the imbalances which affect her.
As eloquently expressed in Animate Earth: Science, Intuition and Gaia by ecologist Stephan Harding, a votary of this hypothesis, “The soul of a place, when entered into with the deep interest and concern that love entails, contains the quality of Gaia as a whole being… We need to give ourselves time to experience the soul of the place and through it the soul of the world, the anima mundi.”
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Illustration: Artwork by Khyati K
If you were to arrive at Ladakh’s Kesar early in the evening, you’d find the whole village—all of 17 women and a handful of children—seated in a circle on the grey, sandy earth of someone’s backyard, using loose wooden floorboards as mats. You’ll see women in salwar suits and sweaters, wearing scarves over their heads and socks under their slippers. You’ll see a pink-and-white ceramic tray with matching pink-and-white ceramic cups, and a thermos or two of tea. The men of the village live wherever they find employment—mostly in Leh, where they work as drivers. The women stay back, raising children, growing crops, and keeping the village alive.
Kesar village is located on the Changthang Plateau, over 4,000 metres above sea level. It is dry, bitingly cold desert land, barren for most of the year. In the winter months, the mercury plummets to temperatures as low as -30°C. From May to September, there opens a small window of time when the women of the village can grow wheat, barley, and potatoes. This wheat, once it has been harvested and cleaned, is either ground into flour (atta) or dry roasted to make sattu. It serves as their primary food for the rest of the year, weaving itself into their sparse diet: rotis with dal for their main meals, and sattu with their tea. Little else adds colour or variety to their food. For vegetables, they were dependent on a weekly bus to Leh—the closest city, over 180 km away—but they could barely afford it.
The spaces between the layers of polycarbonate trap air, creating air pockets that keep warm air from escaping, maintaining warmth within the greenhouse even in sub-zero temperature winters.
In 2023, the Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology (SKUAST, Jammu) introduced polyhouse farming to the region and trained the village women in controlled-environment agriculture. Polyhouses function as advanced greenhouses made of brick walls and plastic roofs; they trap solar radiation and maintain warmth to allow for year-round cultivation of vegetables. The polyhouse in Kesar village features three sides of mud brick walls for improved heat retention, and a triple-layer polycarbonate sheet, chosen for its durability compared to other types of plastics, as well as its ability to diffuse more light than glass. Moreover, to maximise the sunlight received, the polycarbonate sheet typically faces south. The spaces between the layers of polycarbonate trap air, creating air pockets that keep warm air from escaping, maintaining warmth within the greenhouse even in sub-zero temperature winters.
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Polyhouses have been transformative for the village. While they continue to buy pulses from Leh, they now eat the vegetables they grow. Tsering Lamo, one of Kesar’s residents, talks about how the polyhouses have brought food security—something she didn’t have while growing up. “But now, everything is alright,” she says. “We have vegetables, grains—everything.” The polyhouse has also infused variety into their diet. Instead of living on just dal to accompany their rotis, they now have vegetables. This gives them a reason to cook twice a day, and to find creative ways to incorporate their produce into meals. These vegetables also add new twists to familiar dishes like momos.
The polyhouse has also infused variety into their diet. Instead of living on just dal to accompany their rotis, they now have vegetables.
For miles around, there are only two colours visible: brown and grey. The sky, the mountains, the land—even the sparse vegetation—conform to the palette. The landscape appears majestic and imposing, but also distant and spiritless. The air is suffused with loneliness. In response, a sisterhood has come alive—one that grows food together, cooks together, and eats together. At night, they break off into smaller groups, eating dinner and sleeping over at each other’s houses—living life in an ongoing, alternating sleepover. The polyhouse becomes another weapon in their arsenal; another way to stave off loneliness. Not only are they solving their food problem, but they are also having fun with it, bringing a sense of curiosity, experimentation, and purpose to their time in the polyhouse. They’ve grown not only common polyhouse crops like lettuce, cucumbers and potatoes, but also small watermelons. “This is a newly set-up greenhouse, and we’re slowly figuring out what else we can grow here,” says Tsering Zangmo, with a spark in her eyes.
If you pass them by, the sisterhood will cheerfully call out: “Juley! Juley! Juley!” Juley is used to convey many things—hello, welcome, please, and thank you—with the singular feeling of warmth. The sisterhood of the cold desert thrives.
Also read: Sasbani’s 'fruits' of labour: Reviving hope in rural Uttarakhand
Also read: At Ammachi’s farm, the impossible can be achieved—and made profitable
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Editor's Note: From grocery lists, to fitness priorities, and even healthy snacking, protein is everywhere—but do we truly understand it? In this series, the Good Food Movement breaks down the science behind this vital macronutrient and its value to the human body. It examines how we absorb protein from the food we consume, how this complex molecule has a role to play in processes like immunity, and the price the Earth pays for our growing protein needs.
Over the last decade, the global food industry has flooded the market with ‘proteinified’ products, heavily capitalising on the widespread belief that we are constantly falling short on the macronutrient. And it’s not just supplements, bars or shakes anymore, people. Those bowing to the fitness holy grail have the option to buy protein-packed ice cream, soda, pasta and even popcorn!
But this surge has less to do with our nutritional needs, and more with clever marketing. As the Wall Street Journal put it back in 2013: “When the box says ‘protein,’ shoppers say ‘I’ll take it’.” This constant messaging that we aren’t eating enough has created a certain ‘protein anxiety’.
Protein is essential for building and repairing tissues. However, consistently consuming it in excess can trigger health issues.
Protein needs do not remain constant over the human lifespan. For the average adult, 0.8-1 gram of protein per kilogram of body weight per day is sufficient. Getting more than 22% of daily calories from protein may do more harm than good. For most adults, about 20–30 grams of protein per meal—or 60–90 grams per day—is enough to stay healthy. Active individuals (especially those doing weight training for more than an hour daily) may need slightly more than this baseline threshold.
Other needs vary more dramatically. Pregnant and lactating women usually need more for bodily repair and growth. Those with chronic illness or inflammation also have greater needs since their bodies use and break down protein faster. Older adults often require more to maintain muscle mass. Ironically, the people who may need that extra bit of protein are not younger gym-goers, even though this is the demographic that most immediately comes to mind when we think of protein-fortified products.
Also read: Is there an ‘ideal’ amount of protein that must be consumed?
Since the body cannot ‘store’ excess protein, it is converted to fat. Unchecked high-protein consumption can cause weight gain. This weight gain is often overlooked in the rush to ‘bulk up,’ but it underscores that more is not always better.
The kidneys and liver play a key role in breaking down and metabolising proteins. When you eat more than the body can use, nitrogen from amino acids is converted into waste products like urea and ammonia. Clearing these requires extra water, putting a strain on the kidneys and raising the risk of dehydration. Early signs include a dry mouth, dark urine, and fatigue. In people with existing kidney disease, this extra load can accelerate decline in function. Foamy or bubbly urine can indicate proteinuria (excess protein in the urine), which is often an early warning of kidney damage.
There are other ways in which protein overwhelms the body’s natural detoxification systems. The liver works harder to process excess protein, leading in rare cases to ‘protein poisoning’ where dangerously high levels of urea and amino acids build up in the blood. While extremely uncommon, it can at times be fatal.
Since the body cannot ‘store’ excess protein, it is converted to fat.
High protein intake—especially from animal sources—can also affect bone health. When protein is broken down, acids are produced in the body. To neutralise this, calcium may be leached from bones, potentially increasing the risk of osteoporosis over the long term. Research suggests that eating less protein may help lower blood ammonia levels and reduce the risk of hepatic encephalopathy—a brain condition caused by the liver not clearing toxins from the blood.
The consequences extend to heart health as well. Long-term high intake of animal protein, particularly red and processed meats, is also linked to a higher risk of cardiovascular disease, partly due to increased saturated fat, cholesterol, and elevated blood lipids. “While there’s no definite link between overall protein intake and risk of death, greater intake of animal protein is associated with a higher risk of death. And plant protein is associated with a lower risk,” says Walter Willett, professor of epidemiology and nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
Excess protein has also been linked to higher risks of certain cancers, especially colorectal cancer. This may be due to compounds formed when red meat is cooked at high temperatures, as well as the role of insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1), a hormone stimulated by high protein intake that can promote cell proliferation.
Beyond these long-term risks, there are everyday side effects too: bad breath (due to ketones from low-carb, high-protein diets), constipation from reduced fibre intake, and gastrointestinal discomfort like bloating or diarrhoea.
Also read: Is your body low on protein? Signs and impacts of a deficiency
The Indian Council of Medical Research advises against using protein supplements as a shortcut to bulking up. Yet, protein-packed powders, shakes, and bars are often marketed as quick, convenient fixes—promising instant muscle growth, energy boosts, or weight loss. This positioning appeals to anyone looking for a faster route to fitness.
These products are often loaded with sugars, artificial sweeteners and other additives and preservatives that can undermine their supposed benefits. Excessive consumption of protein shakes or bars may also reduce your natural intake of other nutrient-rich foods, leading to a less balanced diet. If you do opt for powders or shakes, look for organic products with minimal additives and third-party safety testing, since supplement regulations are often lenient.
Protein bars, marketed as convenient fuel, can be misleading. Relying solely on them as a main protein source means missing nutrients found in whole foods: omega-3s from fish, magnesium and fibre from beans, healthy fats from nuts, and immune-boosting compounds in seeds. Nutritionists suggest sticking to one, at most two, supplemental protein servings per day—ideally after workouts or on busy days. The rest of your intake should come from varied, natural food sources, rich in amino acids essential to the body.
These products are often loaded with sugars, artificial sweeteners and other additives and preservatives that can undermine their supposed benefits.
When planned properly, Indian meals can be very protein-dense. Instead of processed powders and bars, one can opt for nutritious meals like eggs, beans, and lentil soups that can support long-term health.
Also read: Whey to go: A complete guide on protein
The latest data highlights that Indians are now eating more protein than ever–in urban as well as rural settings. In urban areas, the average person consumed 63.4 grams of protein per day in 2023-24, up from 58.8 grams in 2009-10, an 8% rise. In rural areas, the increase was smaller, from 59.3 grams to 61.8 grams per day.
Protein is essential, but balance matters. Overconsumption can burden the body and deprive you of other vital nutrients.
Protein is essential, but balance matters. Overconsumption can burden the body and deprive you of other vital nutrients. Whole, farm-fresh foods remain the best sources, and professional advice can help tailor intake to individual needs. Ultimately, the right amount depends on lifestyle, age, and health status—reminding us that protein should be seen not as a quick fix or a marketing trend, but as part of a diverse and balanced diet that supports long-term health.
Additional inputs by Harshita Kale
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