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India is not a water deficit country, but due to severe neglect and lack of monitoring of water resources development projects, several regions in the country experience water stress from time to time. Further neglect in this sector will lead to water scarcity during the next 1-2 decades. It is therefore necessary to prevent this crisis by making best use of the available technologies and resources to conserve the existing water resources, convert them into utilisable form and make efficient use of them for agriculture, industrial production and human consumption. Imposing regulatory measures to prevent the misuse of water and introducing rewards and punishment to encourage judicious use of water, will be helpful to conserve water. Finally, awareness and orientation of all the water users to change their lifestyle to conserve water can help the country to tide over the water crisis in the future. The challenge is manageable provided we have favorable policies and mechanisms to persuade our people to change their lifestyle.

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Ganapathy, Anitha
Anitha G., is working in the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, India. She is primarily instrumental in agricultural education, research and development.

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