India's 'worst water crisis' leaves millions thirsty
Weak infrastructure and a national shortage have made water costly all over India, but Sushila Devi paid a higher price than most. It took the deaths of her husband and son to force authorities to supply it to the slum she calls home.
"They died because of the water problem, nothing else," said Devi, 40, as she recalled how a brawl over a water tanker carrying clean drinking water in March killed her two relatives and finally prompted the government to drill a tubewell.
"Now things are better. But earlier ... the water used to be rusty, we could not even wash our hands or feet with that kind of water," she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in Delhi.
India is "suffering from the worst water crisis in its history", threatening hundreds of millions of lives and jeopardising economic growth, a government think-tank report said in June.
From the northern Himalayas to the sandy, palm-fringed beaches in the south, 600 million people - nearly half India's population - face acute water shortage, with close to 200,000 dying each year from polluted water.
Water pollution is a major challenge, the report said, with nearly 70 percent of India's water contaminated, impacting three in four Indians and contributing to 20 percent of the country's disease burden.
Yet only one-third of its wastewater is currently treated, meaning raw sewage flows into rivers, lakes and ponds - and eventually gets into the groundwater.
Meanwhile, unchecked extraction by farmers and wealthy residents has caused groundwater levels to plunge to record lows, says the report.
It predicts that 21 major cities, including New Delhi and India's IT hub of Bengaluru, will run out of groundwater by 2020, affecting 100 million people.
The head of WaterAid India VK Madhavan said the country's groundwater was now heavily contaminated with chemicals linked to cancer.
"It (water) is a finite resource. It is not infinite. One day it can (become) extinct," he said, warning that by 2030 India's water supply will be half of the demand.
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