Revitalization of Rivers in India Draft Policy - Isha Guru Jaggi Vasudev

Revitalization of Rivers In India
Draft Policy Recommendation
From the available water resources, it is expected that by 2025, on an average,
72% of the total water use will be used in the agricultural sector, while 8% and 7%
respectively will be employed for industrial and domestic purposes (Inferred from
Table 1). The trends in water consumption by the industry are detailed in Table 2.
Over the next three decades, it is therefore expected that the agriculture
requirement would continue to dominate the overall water demand in India. The
agricultural output of India is, and will be heavily dependent on the available
groundwater and surface water resources.
Looked at in a different way, groundwater availability is around 1,869 BCM in
India. From this, 40% cannot be used due to geological and topographical reasons
and loss. Only about 4,000 BCM of freshwater is available due to precipitation in
the form of rain and snow, most of which returns to the seas through rivers.
The historical evolution of drinking water supply programmes since independence
came from an aspiration in 1949 for provision of safe drinking water supply to
cover 90% of India‘s population in coming 40 years, to a necessary inclusion of
wastewater treatment and disposal with all drinking water plans in the Twelfth
Plan (2012-17) (Review of Water Policies and Programmes with Special Reference
to Urban Water Supply, 2012).
The status of groundwater in India as of 2016 is summarised in the Table 3. The
trend clearly shows an overexploitation of the groundwater sources over the past
two decades.
TABLE 3: STATUS OF GROUNDWATER DEVELOPMENT IN INDIA BETWEEN 1995 AND 2011
(PRS LEGISLATIVE RESEARCH, FEBRUARY 2016)
Annexures
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