Birmingham and Pune in the Indian state of Maharashtra are partners a Birmingham-India Nutrition Initiative (BINDI). Birmingham City Council’s summary statement about it is here.
The food supply challenges facing Pune and its citizens are qualitatively different from those facing us here in Birmingham. One of these challenges is water for drinking, and for agriculture.
In India, 21 cities are expected to have exhausted their groundwater supply by 2020, according to Government of India’s National Institution for Transforming India: NITI Aayog: Composite Water Management Index published in June 2018. In the Forward, NITI Aavog’s CEO, Amitabh Kant states:
“It’s a matter of concern that 600 million people in India face high to extreme water stress in the country. About three-fourth of the households in the country do not have drinking water at their premise. With nearly 70% of water being contaminated, India is placed at 120th amongst 122 countries in the water quality index . . . The crisis is only going to get worse. By 2030, the country’s water demand is projected to be twice the available supply, implying severe water scarcity for hundreds of millions of people and an eventual ~6% loss in the country’s GDP.”
see also: This report of Prime Minister Modi’s address to the NITI Aayog Governing Council Meeting on 15th June 2019: PM finally comes round to water, agrarian crisis.