How acute would be the water scarcity problem in the future?
It is now widely recognized that in the next two decades the world will be heading for a water crisis of unusual dimensions. Population explosion combined with increase in per capita consumption of water has created tremendous pressure on water resources. It is projected that India and China housing more than 1 billion people, would face absolute scarcity of water by 2025. Rural water supply in India is possibly the largest of its kind in the world, involving substantial investment of more than Rs. 35,000 crore. All these factors have already generated enhanced demand for potable water. Highly pollution and shortage of surface water has shifted the focus to ground water. Bulk of the water supply in our country is ground water based (more than 85%). Hardness, salinity and brackishness are associated with ground water making it unpalatable. Apart from salinity and hardness there are problems of contamination with heavy metals, pesticides, herbicides etc. Necessity to treat ground water a
