Conservation - Reducing Water Usage

India, the second largest population in the world, is facing a water crisis with over 600 million people facing acute water shortage, as per a report by Niti Aayog, the government think-tank. India’s water crisis is expected to worsen, threatening the country’s food security as over 80 percent of our water is used in agriculture. Twenty-one cities are likely to run out of groundwater by 2020, despite increasing demand, as per the report.

CWC data shows water storage in major river basins depleting

The Hindu Kush Himalayas (HKH) cover 3500 kms across eight countries namely Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Myanmar, Nepal and Pakistan.

At 42 years, Bhagwat Ghagare seems young. But he is old enough to have seen his village prosper and decline many times. Farming had traditionally been small and distress migration rampant at Kumbharwadi in Ahmednagar district of Maharashtra.

Gulam Mustafa owns around five acres of land at Digalhati Moynaguri village in Coochbehar district of West Bengal. The 34-year-old has switched to “smart farming” to minimise labour cost and water use. Water crisis is a serious problem plaguing the farming community leading to large scale migration of farmers to cities and even farmer suicides. 

In India, women often travel long distances to fetch water. This in turn affects school attendance for young girls, and has a domino effect on other development indicators. Women and girls are an important stakeholder to be considered in the design of interventions and programmes to ensure access to safe water for all.

On International Women's Day today, we take a look at the critical connects between gender and water.

India is undergoing a major transition with changes in rainfall patterns leading to increased frequency of droughts, floods, heat waves amidst fear of a major water crisis in the years to come. Why are these threats increasing?

Identify farmers for income support scheme: NITI Aayog to states

Launched in 2015, Project Raahat, an initiative by students of a management institute, Shaheed Sukhdev College of Business Studies (SSCBS), Delhi University has been working on eradicating open defecation and providing safe sanitation in urban slums of India. They do this through innovations in management and operations of community toilet complexes and sensitising people on safe sanitary practices. The project is a part of Enactus, a global non-profit organisation.