The per capita availability of water in India today is around 2000 cu meters against 5000 cu meters in 1950. The pressure on water resources has been increasing due to increasing population and poor monsoons in the recent past.
Speaking at a media conference in Chennai, organised by The Hindu Media Resource Centre for Sustainable Development and International Crops Research Institute for Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), Suresh Prabhu, the chairman of the Task Force on Interlinking of Rivers, Government of India, said: