Coca Cola India CEO ATUL SINGH sees water harvesting as one of the best alternatives to resolve the crisis IN INDIA, 17 PERCENT of the population shares less than four percent of the world's freshwater resource. Even if we get good rainfall, the water does not recharge the ground water locally; it goes elsewhere and at times leads to miseries. Only 11 percent of ground water of the country is replenishable and rest of the water goes as runoff due to lack of sufficient infrastructure and hydro-geological conditions.

The city may have to go through water cuts this summer to help its parched neighbours. Municipal corporations around Mumbai, faced with an acute water shortage, have rushed in to claim the city's daily share of 3,400 million litres of water. The BMC has already received a request from Thane Municipal Corporation for an additional 100 million litres of water every day. This, besides the 160 million litres it supplies to the TMC for a nominal cost. Bhayandar has also asked the BMC for 50 million litres daily, over and above the 35 million litres it gets from the city civic body.

People are beginning to feel the effect of scorching heat in the very beginning of April. Most of the wells have dried. There is no water in ponds. Either the hand pumps give impure water or they have started to go out of order. Water crisis is also prevailing in cities. In several cities water has become a scarce commodity. Water level of big reservoirs are decreasing rapidly. Dams are in deteriorating condition. The members of municipal corporations and municipal councils often argue with one another. Water is being sold in all the big cities including capital.

Water scarcity is the albatross around our collective neck

Greenhouse gases have been the big focus of most companies' environmental efforts for several years, with pollution a close second. But another equally pressing environmental issue has received much less attention: water. For most companies in the developed world, water is not much of a problem. Water bills are generally a tiny part of overheads, and unless there is a drought or flood, companies can count on it flowing from the tap.

Summers make water, particularly its scarcity, a fiery issue in urban life. But a young man has made it more than that: He has made water his mission. In fact so driven is C S Sharada Prasad about understanding the extent of the looming water crisis in the country, that he has embarked on a breathtaking journey, straddling 28 states and covering 19,000km in 75 days on a motorcycle. Covering also five Union Territories, this modernday odyssey has a tag: K2K, or from Kashmir to Karnataka.

A large number of localities were deprived of drinking water on Tuesday without prior intimation. Water was not released to about 70,000 connections in Vijaynagar Colony, Humayunnagar, Red Hills, Banjara Hills and Jubilee Hills, Old Mallepally, Allabanda, Asifnagar, Rajendernagar municipal circle areas and surrounding localities. These areas had gone without water for four days last week after Krishna water pipeline burst at Lenin Nagar.

The Central Water Commission has completed the pre-feasibility study ordered by the Delhi government to tackle the water crisis in the city. The commission has proposed to the government to construct a water barrage that will be used to store overflows from the Yamuna in monsoons. Subsequently, the Delhi Jal Board has accepted the proposals and the work on the project is likely to start soon.

China Drought Leaves 670,000 Without Drinking Water CHINA: April 14, 2008 BEIJING - A drought in China's northeast Liaoning province has left nearly 700,000 people without drinking water after rainfall in the first three months of 2008 tumbled to one-fifth levels last year, the Xinhua agency said on Sunday. The area is a top grain producer, and maize and rice farming is due to begin next week, but from January to the end of March it had got less than 2 centimetres (less than an inch) of rain.

Seven prisoners lodged in the Tihar Jail here died of dehydration last year. This year, barely at the start of summer, a severe water shortage has hit the prison again.