| | February 20198UNDERSTANDING INDIA'S BURDEN OF UNDERRATED WATER BORNE DISEASESBy Marzin Shroff, Managing Director & CEO, Eureka Forbeshe global population with-out access to clean drinking water has gone-up mani-fold in the last few years. It is rather alarming to note that one out of every nine people, globally, do not have access to clean water close to their homes and 60 per-cent of the world's population lives in areas of water stress. For India in particular, as per a World Resourc-es Report, 70 percent of the surface resources and a growing percentage of groundwater reserves are contam-inated by biological, toxic, organic, and inorganic pollutants. In this light, it isn't surprising to note that in India, over one lakh people die of water-borne diseases annually. It is report-ed that groundwater in one-third of India's 600 districts is not fit for drink-ing. Major efforts to improve access to drinking water across India have not been matched by proportionate inclines in deaths and illnesses from waterborne diseases, which remain grossly underestimated. While the problem of accessing clean drinking water is persistent across the country, rural areas have been facing utmost difficulties. According to a new global report in 2017, India has the maximum num-ber of people, i.e., approximate-ly 63 million, living in rural areas without access to clean water. Be-tween 4,00,000-5,00,000 children aged under five years die each year from diarrhoea, a report said, citing a failure to improve personal and home hygiene as a factor. This prob-lem needs an immediate attention as this not only affects people phys-ically, but also results in the loss of economic opportunities.Understanding the importance and the need of water, organisations have taken several initiatives to ad-dress the problem of affordability and accessibility to clean, healthy drink-ing water in rural India. While some companies are providing bottled water and tankers, a lot of them are setting-up water ATMs & Water Kiosks in these areas. The Water ATMs are designed in such a way that they can purify and dispense wa-ter through prepaid card swipes. In Holding diverse work experiences from Origin Consultants, Prism Business Corporation, Triton Communications, and many other eminent firms, Marzin currently oversees global business of the Eureka Forbes Group and drives Lux International towards the path of success.TIN MY OPINION
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