Our Water Resources

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India’s water resources derive largely from rainfall within the country. The rainfall is generous but its distribution over time and place is uneven. This necessitates gigantic projects for the control, storage, and transfer of available supply. The present book intends to acquaint the general reader with the problem. It examines the solutions being attempted and suggests fresh and possible alternatives.

Dr Rama is the originator of a conceptually new scheme for creating artificial underground reservoirs which would be specially suitable for the Indian environment. He has made original contributions in various other areas of research including the study of cosmic ray interactions, geochronology and the application of radioactive tracers for investigating problems in meteorology, oceanography, and hydrology.

This book is intended for the lay reader, that is, a person who is not connected with water professionally in any way. A professional would naturally feel disappointed if he-cares to go through it.

Here, I have attempted to give, in brief, a perspective of India’s water resources, the central theme being their availability for irrigation. The chosen theme, though ad- mittedly mundane, is vital for us. Our future welfare rests on how well we succeed in harnessing the available water for ‘irrigation’. Progress on other fronts such as hydel and transport is also important. But these and other aspects connected with municipal and industrial needs are not dealt in any length. Even in the main theme, only a brief account of the salient features is presented. Statistical data are given only where considered necessary to make a point.

The material presented here comes from various text- books, reports of committees and commissions, talks heard in symposia and chance discussions with friends. I do not, however, wish to disown responsibility for mistakes and untenable opinions which must be there.