Lack of water could limit India's social, economic growth in future

Netindian Network News: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today said that most objective data available pointed unerringly to the conclusion that water, or the lack of it, could well become the limiting factor for India's social and economic growth in the future.

"With around 18% of the world's population but only 4% of its usable fresh water, India already faces a scarcity of water, which is a vital and stressed natural resource," he said at the 6th meeting of the National Water Resources Council here.

Dr Singh said climate change could further aggravate the distortions in water availability in the country. Receding glaciers would negatively impact flows in the country's major rivers and pose a major new threat to the welfare of millions of our people, he said. He said rapid economic growth and urbanization today were widening the demand supply gap and leading to worsening of the water-stress index.

"Our water bodies are getting increasingly polluted by untreated industrial effluents and sewage. Groundwater levels are falling in many parts due to excessive withdrawals, leading to contamination with fluoride, arsenic and other chemicals. The practice of open defecation, which regrettably is all too widespread, contributes further to contaminating potable water sources," he said.

Dr Singh said the situation called for judicious management of the country's limited water resources and a paradigm shift in its approach to this vital issue. ...

A reflection of the Taj Mahal on the Yamuna River, in Agra, shot by www.viajar24h.com, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license