Union Minister for Jal Shakti, Gajendra Singh Shekhawat stated that the government wants to make water conservation a mass movement. He further mentioned that the government has a target of quadrupling access to drinking water.
Crux of the Matter
The minister mentioned that in the last 70 years, drinking water access has reached only 3.5 crore out of 18 crore households in the country.
Climate change, erratic rains and a growing population have made water a challenge not only for India, but also the world.
India majorly depends on ground water, and its ground water usage is 1.5 times that of US and China put together.
Foreseeing the importance of water conservation, the second Modi government formed the Jal Shakti ministry to tackle this issue. As per ministry claims, since 3 months of formation, they have helped in rejuvenating 50,000 traditional water bodies and created 1 lakh new ones.
Curiopedia
Water scarcity in India is due to both natural and human-made causes. Main factors that contribute to water issues include poor management of resources, lack of government attention, and man-made waste. 18 percent of the world’s population which resides in India only has access to 4 percent of usable water sources. Official data in the past decade depicts how annual per capita availability of water in the country has plummeted significantly with 163 million Indians lacking access to safe drinking water. The NITI Ayog has listed Delhi and other 21 cities in India which would run out of groundwater by 2020.
Curated Coverage
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