Focus on water quality & demand management

The third in a series of weekly articles on the new National Water Policy

The new National Water Policy (NWP) argues that limits are now being reached on possibilities of solving India’s water problem from the supply side. The policy proposes a shift in focus towards the long-neglected demand-side management of water. The most important reform needed here is in irrigation, which takes up 80-90 per cent of India’s water use. And just three crops — rice, wheat and sugarcane — consume 80 per cent of this water. Without a radical change in this pattern of water demand, basic water needs of millions of people cannot be met. Water-intensive crops are grown even in