India set to become water scarce by 2025
2 Aug 2015 5:24 AM IST
In his reply to a question in Lok Sabha, Minister of State for Water Resources Sanwar Lal Jat on Thursday said that consulting firm ‘Everything About Water’ (EA Water) has concluded that India’s demand for water is expected to exceed all current sources of supply and the country is set to become water scarce by the year 2025.
According to the minister, the average annual water availability for the country has been assessed by the Central Water Commission to be at 1,869-billion cubic metres (BCM).
But due to topographical, hydrological and other constraints, the utilisable water has been estimated to be about 1,123 BCM, he added. The National Commission for Integrated Water Resources Development, in a 1999 report, had said that the annual water requirement by 2025 and 2050 will be about 843 BCM and 1,180 BCM, respectively, Jat further said.
India ranks 14th out of 22 nations on TB prevalence
India had 2.6 million cases of Tuberculosis as per the latest count and ranks 14th among 22 high TB burden countries globally, the lower house of Indian Parliament (Lok Sabha) was informed on Friday. "As per WHO Global Tuberculosis Report 2014, in India, the estimated prevalence of TB is 2.6 million cases," Health Minister J P Nadda said. For Multi-Drug Resistant Tuberculosis, the report estimated 61,000 MDR-TB cases in India among notified pulmonary TB cases. However, on the basis of prevalence rate, India ranks 14th among 22 high TB burden countries globally, he said while replying ot questions.
"Due to the large population of our country, the same translates into the large number of cases," Nadda said. The Minister said it is likely that with a large private sector of healthcare in India, a significant proportion of cases not registered under National Tuberculosis Control Programme (RNTCP) were diagnosed and treated in private sector. "The programmatic management of drug resistant TB under RNTCP had commenced in 2007 and complete country coverage was achieved in 2013. The action already taken by India is in consonance with the resolution of anti-microbial resistance passed by the World Health Assembly in May 2015," he said.
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