Water used for drinking,cooking, washing, cleaning and for animals is vital. Planning for this component is needed to increase the availability so that a minimum amount is actually made available to all, irrespective of their income.

Water is required for manufacturing processes and this demand often competes with domestic and agricultural uses. This needs to be taken into account as this conflict is on the increase. The challenge areas facing industrial use are recycling of water and control of pollution. What is available to a region or a village does not only depend on the inflows but also what is already available as ‘stock’ that we use. We often have to keep this distinction between stock and flow clear in our analysis. For example imagine a tank that is constantly being filled by an inlet pipe and water is also constantly used by an outlet pipe. We can measure the inflow as the amount of water liters/ minute and the outflow similarly as the water liters/ min that flows out. The amount of water in the tank keeps varying but at any one moment in time, say at 8.30 am, we can measure the amount in liters. This is the stock of water at that time. A village may have tanks, ponds, lakes, these are all surface storages. Most villages in India draw water from wells and tube wells. They are dependent on ground water storage. These inflows and storage are connected. While some of the water flowing in is used directly, one part of this is recharging or replenishing the storage. Similarly, the use of tube wells draws water from storages and lowers the water available in them. Depending on comparative rates of inflow and outflow we can judge what is happening to the stock of water over many years. The question that we face today is the depletion of ground water storages and a tendency not to care about the availability for future generations. The annual flows and stocks that recharge wells and tube wells is the water that is available for use. We should keep our needs in this range. When we dig into deeper aquifers - this is like mining water that has collected over thousands ofWater use for domestic purpose and for animals: Water used for drinking, cooking, washing, cleaning and for animals is vital. Planning for this component is needed to increase the availability so that a minimum amount is actually made available to all, irrespective of their income. Water for industrial use: Water is required for manufacturing processes and this demand often competes with domestic and agricultural uses. This needs to be taken into account as this conflict is on the increase. The challenge areas facing industrial use are recycling of water and control of pollution. What is available to a region or a village does not only depend on the inflows but also what is already available as ‘stock’ that we use. We often have to keep this distinction between stock and flow clear in our analysis. For example imagine a tank that is constantly being filled by an inlet pipe and water is also constantly used by an outlet pipe. We can measure the inflow as the amount of water liters/ minute and the outflow similarly as the water liters/ min that flows out. The amount of water in the tank keeps varying but at any one moment in time, say at 8.30 am, we can measure the amount in liters. This is the stock of water at that time. A village may have tanks, ponds, lakes, these are all surface storages. Most villages in India draw water from wells and tube wells. They are dependent on ground water storage. These inflows and storage are connected. While some of the water flowing in is used directly, one part of this is recharging or replenishing the storage. Similarly, the use of tube wells draws water from storages and lowers the water available in them. Depending on comparative rates of inflow and outflow we can judge what is happening to the stock of water over many years. The question that we face today is the depletion of ground water storages and a tendency not to care about the availability for future generations. The annual flows and stocks that recharge wells and tube wells is the water that is available for use. We should keep our needs in this range. When we dig into deeper aquifers - this is like mining water that has collected over thousands ofWater use for domestic purpose and for animals: Water used for drinking, cooking, washing, cleaning and for animals is vital. Planning for this component is needed to increase the availability so that a minimum amount is actually made available to all, irrespective of their income. Water for industrial use: Water is required for manufacturing processes and this demand often competes with domestic and agricultural uses. This needs to be taken into account as this conflict is on the increase. The challenge areas facing industrial use are recycling of water and control of pollution. What is available to a region or a village does not only depend on the inflows but also what is already available as ‘stock’ that we use. We often have to keep this distinction between stock and flow clear in our analysis. For example imagine a tank that is constantly being filled by an inlet pipe and water is also constantly used by an outlet pipe. We can measure the inflow as the amount of water liters/ minute and the outflow similarly as the water liters/ min that flows out. The amount of water in the tank keeps varying but at any one moment in time, say at 8.30 am, we can measure the amount in liters. This is the stock of water at that time. A village may have tanks, ponds, lakes, these are all surface storages. Most villages in India draw water from wells and tube wells. They are dependent on ground water storage. These inflows and storage are connected. While some of the water flowing in is used directly, one part of this is recharging or replenishing the storage. Similarly, the use of tube wells draws water from storages and lowers the water available in them. Depending on comparative rates of inflow and outflow we can judge what is happening to the stock of water over many years. The question that we face today is the depletion of ground water storages and a tendency not to care about the availability for future generations. The annual flows and stocks that recharge wells and tube wells is the water that is available for use. We should keep our needs in this range. When we dig into deeper aquifers - this is like mining water that has collected over thousands ofWater use for domestic purpose and for animals: Water used for drinking, cooking, washing, cleaning and for animals is vital. Planning for this component is needed to increase the availability so that a minimum amount is actually made available to all, irrespective of their income. Water for industrial use: Water is required for manufacturing processes and this demand often competes with domestic and agricultural uses. This needs to be taken into account as this conflict is on the increase. The challenge areas facing industrial use are recycling of water and control of pollution. What is available to a region or a village does not only depend on the inflows but also what is already available as ‘stock’ that we use. We often have to keep this distinction between stock and flow clear in our analysis. For example imagine a tank that is constantly being filled by an inlet pipe and water is also constantly used by an outlet pipe. We can measure the inflow as the amount of water liters/ minute and the outflow similarly as the water liters/ min that flows out. The amount of water in the tank keeps varying but at any one moment in time, say at 8.30 am, we can measure the amount in liters. This is the stock of water at that time. A village may have tanks, ponds, lakes, these are all surface storages. Most villages in India draw water from wells and tube wells. They are dependent on ground water storage. These inflows and storage are connected. While some of the water flowing in is used directly, one part of this is recharging or replenishing the storage. Similarly, the use of tube wells draws water from storages and lowers the water available in them. Depending on comparative rates of inflow and outflow we can judge what is happening to the stock of water over many years. The question that we face today is the depletion of ground water storages and a tendency not to care about the availability for future generations. The annual flows and stocks that recharge wells and tube wells is the water that is available for use. We should keep our needs in this range. When we dig into deeper aquifers - this is like mining water that has collected over thousands ofyears. This is to be done only in extreme drought situations and replenished in good rainfall years. We will come back later to this question of ‘sustainability’.