A recent survey conducted by the Union Ministry of Water Resources has submitted a report which suggests that the water levels in the country’s wells are fast depleting. The report of these shocking details was submitted in the Lok Sabha last week.
As per the survey, water levels in about 61% of the country’s wells have gone down drastically in the last ten years. The data, which was monitored by the Central Ground Water Board, considered 14,465 wells across the nation among which 8,785(60.7%) wells showed fall, 5,609 wells (38.8%) showed an increase and 71 showed no change in water level. According to the survey, Chandigarh and Puducherry suffered the highest fall with 90-100% wells showing fall in level. Among states, Tamil Nadu and Punjab showed the highest decline with 87% and 85% respectively, and are closely followed by Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh with more than 70% decline.
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According to Arjun Ram Meghwal, Union Minister of State in Ministry of Water Resources, the decline has been caused by the over-exploitation of water for irrigation purposes. “While regulation and conservation of groundwater is a state subject, the central government is carrying out awareness camps at locations where overexploitation has been identified, both at the urban and rural levels through several schemes. We are telling citizens to harvest rainwater through traditional means,” he said while submitting the report in the Lok Sabha.
Renowned hydrogeologist Himanshu Kulkarni, who is the director of Advanced Centre for Water Resources Development and Management, said that though the data might be limited when compared to the total number of wells in the country, it still represents the current situation which is quite frightening.
As a way to tackle the situation, Meghwal has announced a pilot scheme called Atal Bhujal Yojna that will be launched in states which are facing great scarcity of water. He also added, “Along with World Bank, an aquifer (a body of saturated rock through which water can easily move) mapping and management programme has been initiated, which will help us identify areas where there is substantial decline and focus our resources there.”
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