Industry Initiatives to Addressing Water Concerns in India Today: The Inward and the Outward Looking Possibilities

Abstract

In India, water is fast becoming a scarce resource. As our country proceeds to achieve developments towards being a knowledge-based economy, competing demands for this limited resource coming from households, industry, and agriculture have wide-ranging implications for the country future. In line with these challenges, Indian industry is realising the importance of conserving and managing water, not only because of the growing scarcity and poor water quality impacting industrial operations, but also because of the fact that they are becoming conscious of their responsibility to (a) conserve water resources and (b) ensure clean water, for their own operations and to help communities around. In order to assess the extent of awareness of the industry to possible initiatives to address water challenges, an empirical research has been undertaken using survey research on a population of practicing managers across the country. This empirical research considers the severe impacts of the water crisis situation and examines if industry participation would help communities as well as their own operation in conserving and preserving this scarce resource. As part of this research, the awareness of private sector to the possible initiatives which are available to help water management has been considered in (a) internal sense (companies looking at the water efficiency in their own operations), and in (b) external sense (looking beyond the walls of the factory to help communities manage and cope with the water crisis situation).

Keywords: Water Management, Empirical Research, Private Sector

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