Development is basically an emancipated procedure and this ability can be used to conserve, protect and improve the environment and not only to destroy it. Water, the supernatural element from which all living matters on the earth originates its existence. In the recent era water has become a matter of serious attention for both policy makers and government. Poverty implies non-acquisition of key resources. Water poverty denotes the non-acquittal of water resources. The world water Assessment program (WWAP, 2001) has defined water poverty as “the condition of insufficient water of satisfactory quality and quantity to meet human and environmental needs”. Water poverty is a serious issue in India since it means a person fails to achieve the basic needs of water that is crucial for life. Recently, Water poverty has been presented as an indicator by a number of authors. In the paper, we have tried to access the Water Poverty Index (WPI) for twenty-three districts of West Bengal using National Sample survey organization (NSSO) 76^th round data and District wise groundwater level report (2018-19) as published by Central Ground Water Board (CGWB) data. The index considered data on five components – Resource, Use, Access, capacity and Environment. The five components of WPI comprises of a total of twenty variables. The result displays an overall illustration of water poverty situation of the districts of West Bengal, that can probably assist the policy makers to assess the threats and to take the possible measures to overcome the situation. Water poverty Index (WPI) assembles the inappropriate issues related to water by combining the aspects of physical, social, economic and environmental and coupling water issues to poverty.

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Keywords: Water Issues to Poverty, Human and Environmental Needs, WPI.