And now the Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) is assisting the Meghalaya government to go into the causes of the scarcity, especially during the lean period. The study will include technical assessments on the status of river catchments in Meghalaya and social and institutional analysis of the forces that have led to the shortage of water, says Jevon Harding of TERI.

TERI will assist the Rain Water Harvesting Mission, formed by the state government, to combat the shortage of surface water. One of the components of the study will be to come up with a strategy of rainwater harvesting.

Cherrapunjee receives about 12000 mm rainfall annually, but the residents face severe crisis of surface water specially during the lean season when rainfall is sometimes nil.

Women and children trudging uphill with water-filled clay-pots on their backs from deep gorges is a common sight in Cherrapunjee today. The perennial springs gushing out abundant water are also now on the verge of drying up due to random large-scale destruction of forests.

Environmentalist Naba Bhattacharjee said, "It's a false notion that high rainfall will ensure perennial water supply for infinity. Only 0.0007 per cent of the world's total water is potable and which is on decline due to change in rainfall pattern and inadequate precipitation due to global warming and climate change."

He, however, emphasized on revival of traditional rain water storage systems supplemented by improved modern technology suitable for hilly the terrain.

Emphasizing on "equitable distribution" of water among people, anthropologist Nitish Jha of the TERI said, "There is no physical crisis of water in Meghalaya, but there is an economic scarcity of water only in Cherrapunjee (now called Sohra), which receives the highest rainfall in the world.

Jha said that the TERI would venture into an extensive survey over a period of one year to ascertain the cause of water crisis in Shillong and Sohra and subsequently come out with a detailed project report on tackling the situation through effective management and conservation measures.

"India as a whole and Meghalaya in particular has had a long history of rainwater harvesting, but the same tradition is now considered 'old-fashioned', which marks an unfortunate shift in attitude," observed Jevon Harding.

Recommending roof-top harvesting of rain water using tin-channels along the roof edges and bamboo channels from innumerable rain-fed springs to canalize water into storage tanks to solve the acute water crisis in rain-fed Meghalaya, experts have also cautioned against the 'unregulated exploitation' of ground water.