Govt plans to train women across villages to combat water crisis

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government plans to employ women across villages to test water quality to combat rising challenges, amid scarcity of the resource across India.

Women in villages across 256 water-scarce districts will receive training to ensure clean water supplies, Smriti Irani, the federal minister for women & child development, said in Mumbai Tuesday. The program will be expanded to cover all of India’s 750,000 villages, Irani said.

Inadequate water supply, sanitation and hygiene cost India around 0.8 per cent of its gross domestic product, according to the World Bank. The efforts to train women are part of the government’s conservation