Currently, 600 million Indians face high to extreme water stress and about two lakh people die every year due to inadequate access to safe water, said the NITI Aayog report on Composite Water Management Index (CWMI) released on Thursday.
It said that "40 per cent of the population will have no access to access drinking water by 2030", while 21 cities, including "New Delhi, Chennai, and Hyderabad, will run out of ground water by 2020, affecting 100 million people".
India is currently ranked 120 among 122 countries in the water quality index.
Thus, there is an imminent need to deepen our understanding of our water resources and usage and put in place interventions that make our water use efficient and sustainable."
"..if nothing changes, and fast, things will get much worse," it said.
By 2030, the country’s water demand is projected to be twice the available supply, implying severe water scarcity for hundreds of millions of people and an eventual 6% loss in the country’s GDP by 2050, the report stated.
Critical groundwater resources – which account for 40% of our water supply – are being depleted at unsustainable rates, it added.
"The country faces significant risks as the low performers on the Water Index are home to ~50% of the country’s population and its agricultural baskets.
The low performers are, worryingly, comprised of the populous northern states of UP, Bihar, Rajasthan, Haryana, and others, and are home to over 600 million people," the report said.
According to the NITI Aayog report, Centre-state and inter-state cooperation were some of the key levers to help address the crisis.