Raw sewage and industrial wastewater contaminated with metals and chemicals irrigate much of the nation's food.
BENGALURU, India. In a small town in the suburbs of this booming city, K.V. Muniraju knows all too well the decade-old battle of securing water for his crops. With groundwater tables continuously falling, the middle-aged farmer once borrowed heavily to dig wells ever deeper.
If he was lucky, he found water. If he was unlucky, he didn't. If he was really unlucky, he found a hint of water and proceeded to invest in the well infrastructure, only to see the well run dry and trap him in debt.
That happened to Muniraju in 1994 and 1995, when he was forced to direct water into his fields from nearby storm water drains.