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India is facing a serious water crisis due to massive contamination of water supply and fast depletion of groundwater resources, with serious implications for health, wealth and sustainability. Discuss in light of the Niti Aayog's report on Composite Water Management Index. 
(10 marks, 150 words) Answer:
That about 600 million faced high water stress, around 2 lakhs of people died every year due to inadequate access to safe water and droughts are becoming more frequent; show India is facing a serious water crisis. The Composite Water Management Index by Niti Ayog ranked all the states based on various parameters like: include various aspects of ground water, restoration of water bodies, irrigation, farm practices, drinking water, policy and governance.
The Scenario:
1.     70% of the water resources are identified as polluted in the Composite Water Management Index. 
2.     Contamination is a bigger issue than Availability per se.
3.     Waste Water Treatment is hovering around 30-33%.
4.     The report highlights the critical status of groundwater resources, which are being depleted at unsustainable rates. Agriculture alone accounts for about 80% of all water use, which is mostly drawn from underground sources.
5.     Growing Population, Urbanization, drilling of wells/ borewells etc. are causing water shortages.
6.     A recent report already highlighted there is 30 mcg/L of Uranium Concentration in ground water. 
Implications for Health, Wealth and Sustainability:
1.     Water crisis breeds Food crisis which can be seen in the form of frequent droughts. 
2.     Water contamination is a significant challenge for India, and is estimated to affect threefourth of the Indian population, contributing 20% of the country’s disease burden. (Damage to Kidneys etc.)
3.     If the Situation remains grim or as usual, there will be 6% loss in the country’s Gross Domestic Product by 2050.
4.     Not Only GDP, but the burden on individual pocket will increase due to degraded health quality as an effect of polluted water.
5.     Critical groundwater resources, which accounted for 40% of India’s water supply, are being depleted at “unsustainable” rates. Thus their recharge would be a problem forthcoming. Various Schemes have been taken, but their success has been under: 



Water Policy Timeline In India:

This Index comes to the aid in the manner that awarding an index rank would help advance schemes for making water potable and its sustainable use and making States feel the need to be competitive. Better data collection would be boosted and the further urbanization pattern would be in sync with the analysis of such data.