India can face water woes due to effects of climate change: Avinash Mishra
Pune, March 16, 2023: NITI Aayog advisor on Water and Land Resources Avinash Mishra has cautioned that India could face water woes in the future due to effects of climate change and hence the need of the hour was to study traditional methods of water-management for water conservation.
Mishra was on Wednesday speaking on the topic ‘Freshwater Ecosystems and Challenges’ during the first second workshop of the four-workshop series titled ‘Institutionalized Skilling Ecosystems for Advanced Realization of Sagar Vision’ to drive the Underwater Domain Awareness (UDA) framework, organised by Pune based Maritime Research Centre (MRC) along with Indo-Swiss Centre for Excellence (ISCE) at the College of Engineering, Pune.
MRC Founder-Director Commander (Retd) Arnab Das and MRC Advisor Praful Talera were present on the occasion.
Mishra said, “In India, currently 1999 Billion Cubic Meter (BCM) water is available. Out of which, 1140 BCM water is available for usage. 690 BCM water derives from sources like rivers, lakes, while 450 BCM water comes from underground wells. There are a lot of problems in the way we conserve water and its distribution. India can face water woes in the future due to effects of climate change. In this scenario, we are focusing on solving problems of water conservation and water management. This includes ways of waste water treatment and its reuse and changes in agricultural methods.”
According to Mishra, if one studies the Indian traditional system, then one understands that a very systematic and technically-sound method was used for water conservation and water-management.
“Water Bundhs, tanks and wells are an example of it. And so we need to study the traditional methods of water conservation and water management,” Mishra said.
“To solve the current issue of water-conservation and water-management, with the help of modern technology, such age-old systems can be used for effective water-management,” he signed off.
