Except for Brahmaputra and Mahanadi, all river basins with a population of more than 20 million face water shortage for the major part of the year
New Delhi: How much water does it take to cook a cup of rice? Recipe books would say two cups. Now consider this: It takes 2,173 litres of water to produce a kg of husked rice. That is a global average. Out of this, 1,488 litres is typically rainwater, 443 litres is surface or groundwater and 242 litres of water are required to carry off the pollutants produced during the process.
For India, the figure is 2,688 litres. The number is worse for several states, including some of the largest rice producers, as the first story in this series pointed out. In the case of goat meat, the requirement can go up to 8,763 litres per kg. Looking at it in terms of nutrition, more than 10 litres of water are required to produce a kilocalorie of nutrition from red meat, while only half a litre is required to produce the same amount from cereals.
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This is the second of a two-part data journalism series looking at issues of embedded water. The first part looked at how inefficient Indian farms are when it comes to water use.