It is estimated that 66 million people in 20 states are at risk due to excess fluoride and 10 million due to excess arsenic in the groundwater.
When water is available, it is likely to be contaminated (up to 70% of our water supply is contaminated), resulting in nearly 2,00,000 deaths each year.
While access has improved markedly in recent years, with almost 87% of rural households having access to basic water, the provision of safe water remains a huge challenge.
Currently, only half of the rural population has access to safely-managed water, far behind even our neighbours such as China and Bangladesh—resulting in one of the highest disease burdens due to water-borne diseases in the developing world.
Tamil Nadu has managed to get an overall score of 51% – one point above the median score and with a dismal to moderate score in most of the 10 key CWI indicators of water management.
This is 3.8 points above median score which puts the state in the third position and Andhra in first among Indian states.
Under Major and Medium Irrigation (Supply side management), Tamil Nadu has a minus 6 score in FY 2016-17 and 3 in FY 2015-16.
In Rural Water supply, TN ranks fifth among Indian states with a median score of 4.1 points.
In Sustainable on-farm water-use practices (Demand side management), TN ranks last among the 17 non-Himalayan states with a dismal score.
The alarming condition of water quality is based on the fact that the lack of clean drinking water has put over 11.5 million people of India at a high risk of the bone crippling disease, fluorosis.