India’s 70% water supply contaminated, 2 lakh people die each year : NITI Aayog

New Delhi: 

The NITI Aayog (National Institution for Transforming India) have released a report titled ‘Composite Water Management Index’ which states that 70% of India’s water supply is contaminated and 2 lakh people die each year due to inadequate access of safe water.

The report has rung warning bells. It said that India is facing it’s worst water crisis in history and the demand for portable water will exceed it’s supply by 2030 if measures are not taken. If the crisis continue there would an eventual loss of 6% in the country’s GDP by 2050.

“India ranks 120 among 122 countries in the Water Quality Index. 75% of households do not have drinking water on premise. 84% rural households do not have piped water access,” the report says.

The report also states that 40% people will have no access to drinking water by 2030 and 21 cities including New Delhi, Bengaluru and Hyderabad will run out of groundwater by 2020.

CWMI (Composite Water Management Index) has been developed by NITI Aayog comprising 9 broad sectors with 28 different indicators covering various aspects of ground water, restoration of water bodies, irrigation, farm practices, drinking water, policy and governance.

For the purposes of analysis, the reporting states were divided into two special groups – ‘North Eastern and Himalayan states’ and ‘Other States’, to account for the different hydrological conditions across these groups.

Gujarat tops the index, followed by Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra. Jharkhand ranks the lowest in the Non Himalayan states.

Tripura tops in the North Eastern and Himalayan states while Uttarakhand and Meghalaya are at the bottom.