Social, Economic and Scientific Measures for Sustainable Water Quality in India – Role of NGOs

Water & waste-water management is vital for environmental sustenance, economic development, sustainable urban infrastructure and poverty reduction in India. Water has the potential for both disease causation and prevention. So far storage capacity of all dams in India is only 174 cu. Km., which is incidently less than the capacity of Kariba Dam in Zambia/Zimbabwe with capacity of 180.6 cu. km. and only 12 cu. km. more than the Aswan High Dam of Egypt. Water of poor quality leads to ill health, whereas water in insufficient quantity claims large chunk of time spent in augmenting the supply; otherwise, the significant time could be spent on more remunerative tasks. This article presents the challenges and prospects of water anG waste-water management in India. The authors hope that this paper would help the policy planners, administrators, professionals, media, NGOs and public at large to understand spectrum of concerns, conflicts, problems, efforts and possible long & short term measures to avert the looming environmental and water crises to obtain their positive participation for assured water quality in India.