Less than 5% of India’s annual water consumption is on account of domestic usage; agriculture’s share is 90%
From the court ordering the shifting of cricket matches out of drought-hit Maharashtra this year to Sheila Dikshit, former chief minister of Delhi, claiming in 2012 that she took a bath in half a bucket of water, urban rationing seems to be the main focus during water crises in India.
While the importance of conservation can’t be stressed enough, focusing just on urban use is the proverbial drop in the ocean because of this one statistic: Less than 5% of India’s annual water consumption is on account of domestic usage; agriculture’s share is 90%.
Now, that is in keeping with international patterns, but India fares miserably in terms of water efficiency of most crops, shows data from Water Footprint Network (WFN), a global network on water issues.
WFN classifies water usage into three types: green (rain water); blue (surface and groundwater); and grey (amount of water required to carry off pollutants). It also gives data on water use for different purposes. WFN data for 1996-2005 shows that crop production, grazing and animal water supply (broadly agricultural use) accounted for a little over 92% of total water use in the world. Industry and domestic use accounted for another 4.4% and 3.6%, respectively.
For India the figures were 92.6%, 3% and 4.4% for agriculture, industrial and domestic use, respectively. India is ranked second behind China in terms of total use of water, although per capita consumption is below the global average. However, it is way ahead of all countries in terms of usage of blue water, showing the high rate of exploitation of surface and groundwater in the country.
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