New Delhi: India's water availability per capita is reducing progressively due to increase in population, said Water Resources Minister Nitin Gadkari on Monday, and the country is already suffering water stressed conditions.
"India cannot sustain drought beyond one non-Monsoon season due to low per capita storage, and faces acute stress if any year happens to be drought hit," said the minister.
Answering a Parliament question, Gadkari said that India's average annual per capita water may reduce to 1340 cubic meters in 2025 and 1140 cubic meters in 2030. In 2001 it was measured to be 1820 cubic meters, and in 2011 it was 1545 cubic meters.
The government defines anything less than 1700 cubic meters per capita water, annually, as water stressed conditions, and anything less than 1000 cubic meters as water scarcity.
"Due to high temporal and spatial variation of precipitation, the water availability of many region of the country is much below the national average and can be considered as water stressed / water scarce," said the minister.
He said that the total capacity of completed dams in the country needed to be upped, from 253 billion cubic meter (BCM) to 450 BCM. This was needed to utilise the surface water resources of 690 BCM.
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