Abstract
Water is an important resource available for humans and fresh water is much more important given its limited availability and erratic distribution over space and time. Water is a renewable and finite resource available globally to the tune of 200,000 km3. The human population, on the other hand, has been continuously growing, which means that there is less water per head to satisfy the need for living a healthy life. Global water resources may be summarized as 97 percent, or 1350x106km3, in ice-caps and glaciers (enough to raise the sea level appreciably if it is melted). The balance of 1 percent is made up of groundwater (7x106 km3), saline and freshwater lakes (0.26x106 km3), soil moisture (0.15x106 km3), plus negligible amounts in rivers and biological systems. Water supply and sanitation is a State subject in India and State/Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) are vested with the constitutional rights to plan, design, implement, operate, and maintenance of water and sanitation projects. The Union Ministry provides technical assistance to States/ULBs in project formulation. National Water Policies provide guidelines on the priority of allocation, methods of management, resource management and institutional issues, emerging approaches, and trends. The National Water Policy, of 2002, assigned overriding priority to drinking water in the planning and operation of water resources. Hence it is ideal to study the supply of drinking water and water rights of the people in the global scenario, national scenario, state level of Tamil Nadu, and particularly the study area of Chennai.
Key Words: Water, Packaged Drinking Water, Effective Management and Safe Drinking Water.
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