About 35 per cent of municipal water is wasted daily in the city because of leakage and misuse, scientists said today. Out of seven million children aged less than five years who die in the world due to water-borne diseases, 1.5 million are from India alone. Alarming figures such as this were revealed during the National Symposium on Environment and Water (NSEW) organised here today by the Indian Association of Hydrologists (IAH), West Bengal regional centre. Speaking at the inauguration of the symposium, Mr Nandogopal Bhatta-charjee, minister-in-charge of the state water resources investigation and development department, called for a "change in attitude' and "long-term measures' to help address the "alarming situation' in water availability in the country. He added that legislation alone was not enough to check water wastage, and other practices that help create a water crisis. Mr Sisir Kumar Banerjee, organising secretary of the symposium, said that 35 per cent of municipal water is wasted daily through leakage and misuse in the city. "Consumption of unsafe water, improper disposal of human excreta, improper environmental sanitation are major causes of many diseases in countries like our own. Conjunctive use of surface and ground water and rain water harvesting practices will ensure better water management,' Mr Banerjee said. Engineers, scientists and geologists of the IAH called for several measures that would keep the environment free from pollution and to maintain the ecological balance. Some of them include reclamation and improvement of surface water bodies, constructing water harvesting systems, implementing artificial recharge techniques, reviewing the inter-linking of rivers to help drought-prone areas, and stop water wastage through leakage and misuse. Scientists said drought affects 86 million people in 14 states, or 116 districts, in the country. Almost all the major rivers in the country, covering 86 per cent of geographical area, are inter-state in character. Review of the inter-linking of rivers would increase cultivation of land, power generation, control floods and drought, make drinking water available to more people, and generally improve the environment, while also providing employment to people, scientists argued. Mr K Koshy, principal secretary, state water resources investigation and development department, said that 2,000 surface water bodies in the state had already been restored, and measures would soon be taken to restore more such water bodies.