India: buying sewage to survive

Chennai Petroleum Corporation, then Madras Refineries, had to shut operations in the late 1980s due to water scarcity. Today it buys sewage and treats it to meet its raw water requirements. Cotton knitwear exporters in Tiruppur in Tamil Nadu have approached the government to privatise water supply in order to ensure regular availability.

The water table in Kurukshetra in Haryana has been falling by around half a metre a year. In four years, according to TERI, the cost of pumping water in the area will go up by INR 70 million (EUR 1.3 million). Apart from Punjab and Haryana, where the problem is serious, Tamil Nadu and Rajasthan are other states where the water table is falling fast because of over-exploitation.

Source: The Business Standard, 25 Mar 2004

Keywords

• Water resources management