The issue of multinational companies (CocaPepsi) using water resource, a public property, to make huge profit leading to depletion of groundwater has reached a serious proportion. The bottled water is something, which till recently I was ambiguous about. If the government fails in providing safe drinking to its citizens then what can common people do? We have to take our own precaution. Almost a decade back in delhi I suffered from serious bouts of stomach ailment which was traced to drinking contaminated water. Probably it had to do with adjusting to highly polluted and unhygienic surroundings. So I had to depend on bottled water or in most cases carry a bottle and fill it from some place which had purified water. Later with more disposable income I started creating a kitchen space and boiled water for drinking purpose, now this could be done only in winter since in summer it added to room temperature and took lots of time to cool. 
Further in summer one drinks more water so heating water was not at all feasible option. This is when one is forced to look for the option of bottled water, evaluating that it is much better option than spending money on doctors and medicines!!. And believe me there are hundreds of people in hospitals in places like delhi because of water related diseases. I must have spent a fortune on bottled drinking water. In the beginning I used to feel seriously guilty (not for depleting water table, at that point it was more about spending unnecessarily!!) like the first day you get into a cycle rickshaw having avoided it for months considering it inhuman then later we get so used to it that even forget that its being run by a human!!(But the one they have in Kolkata, the hand pulled cart, is definitely degrading).The first time I bought a “mineral water” bottle I was actually looking for minerals!!!. I am still not very clear as to why it is referred to as mineral water!!.At the end of the day it is on the State to provide safe drinking water to people. Also the hygiene standards of the society are also a deciding factor. In places like Kerala (or even Bangalore) where hygiene standards are relatively high, one needn’t buy bottled water, even the smallest of shop is safe. But in many parts of India the hygiene standards is unfortunately appallingly low, it may have to do with the fact that I generally frequent the lower end eateries for monetary reasons. Also I travel a lot to odd and out of the world places where things can go seriously wrong if not careful. So again one is forced to buy bottled water.
There are therefore lots of practical problems in refusing bottled water but surely the government can take action to protect water resources being vandalized by this profit making mafia before its too late. I read somewhere that the bottle they sell (“they” here is CocaPepsi plunderers) for 10 Rs a litre, the raw material cost is as low as 0.03 paise and it takes two or three litres of water to make one litre of bottled water. There is also the issue of environmental degradation from plastic bottle garbage. Earth Policy Institute (EPI) says global consumption of bottled water doubled between 1999 and 2004, reaching 41 billion gallons (154 billion liters) annually. The major amount is spent by these plunderers is on packaging and marketing. No wonder the ads. they make are so very funny. It is reduced to a joke. Wherein majority of people are struggling for water some are into open loot (the photos i took from places that never had water problem) . This I am told helps in investment which leads to increase in GDP and this makes some people in certain circle very happy. They also say that the nation is developing very fast in recent times. The competition now is between India and China.
