Water
19% of world’s people without access to clean water live in India
Yet state governments are not serious enough
By Kiran Pandey, Rajit Sengupta
Published: Thursday 22 March 2018
More than 163 million people in India do not have access to clean water, the highest in the world. It also faces several challenges on water resources due to climate change, says a new study by WaterAid, a global advocacy group on water and sanitation. India is followed by Ethiopia with over 60 million people without clean water. Nigeria ranks third with over 59 million people without safe water.
The report, The Water Gap - WaterAid’s State of the World’s Water 2018, warns that the global population without access to clean water has gone up to 844 million, “which is almost 200 million more than previously counted”. People who spend more than 30 minutes travelling to procure water are to be considered without access to water.
Lack of political will can be seen clearly in India, which drew a Master Plan for Artificial Recharge to Ground Water way back in 2013, but is yet to be implemented because most state governments are dragging their feet over it. Under the plan, the country will construct 1,110 million artificial recharge structures with an estimated cost of Rs 79,178 crore. However, in July 2017, the Supreme Court asked the state governments why they had not filed affidavits over whether they will implement the plan or not. This is worrying as the country depends heavily on groundwater to meet its drinking water needs.
Related Stories
- Will a water security bill resolve lack of access in India?
- Unsafe water stunting growth of Indian children: report
- 2.1 billion people lack access to safe drinking water at home; rural-urban gap persists
India Environment Portal Resources :
- Draft report on water quality hotspots in rivers of India other than Ganga, Indus & Brahmaputra Basin
- Drinking water sources in India: how safe is safe?
- Drinking water contamination from peri-urban Bengaluru, India
- National water quality sub-mission guidelines to provide safe drinking water in remaining arsenic and fluoride affected habitations in rural India on mission mode
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