India’s $2.6 trillion economy is primarily agrarian, its farm sector accounting for just over 17% of the GDP and employing over 60 percent of the population, apart from contributing about 12% of exports. The August 2019 Composite Water Management Index, released by the government’s policy think tank, NITI Aayog, notes that this outbound trade is causing an enormous “virtual water loss” through the export of water-intensive crops. For instance, India exported more than 10 trillion litres of embedded or virtual water through the export of 37 lakh tonnes of Basmati rice in 2014-15 alone, which could have been used to grow much larger quantities of other crops like wheat or millet that require far less water. Ref: Mongabay #waterloss #nitiayog #riceexport #basmatirice #waterexport #vertualwater #waterstress #drought #waterconservation #indianeconomy #watercrisis #trillion #policy #agrariancrisis #waterintensive #tahaan #tahaanefforts https://www.instagram.com/p/B4sKZxFo8Ch/?igshid=hu0q7xmufrur