City ground water to go dry in next 3 years

PARCHED CITY

City ground water to go dry in next 3 years

Bappa Majumdar & Sunil Mungara TNN

Hyderabad: Ground water, the most precious resource is fast vanishing from major cities of India and authorities say the only way to save metros like Hyderabad from running dry in a few years time is to dig thousands of recharge pits to help conserve ground water.
    Sounding alarm bells, scientists at the National Geophysical Research Institute (NGRI) said ground water in Hyderabad, Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai along with several other northern cities were declining at a very rapid rate, with the situation in Hyderabad getting worse by the day.
    “History shows us civilizations have vanished once water was gone. Water carries people and we need to wake up now and do something before it is too late,” Mrinal Kanti Sen, director of NGRI told TOI.
    Staring at an acute crisis, NGRI has been asked by the Central Ground Water Board (CGWB) under the Ministry of Water Resources to trace new aquifers using heliborne electromagnetic techniques in the states of Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Bihar and Rajasthan. Monsoon failed to raise ground water level
Hyderabad: “The government is concerned and we are gearing up to find new aquifers all over the country as this is the only way out,” said Sen. In Hyderabad, despite a very good monsoon this year, water levels at observatories in places like Sanjeeva Reddy Nagar and Marredpally were at a depth of nearly 18 metres while the situation in other zones getting bad. Hydro geologists at NGRI and water board officials said with the city turning into a concrete jungle, very less amount of rain water is getting infiltrated into the soil for conversion into ground water.
    “In an ideal scenario, at least 16% of total rainfall must seep into the earth for getting recharged as ground water, but in Hyderabad barely 8% was getting recharged which is very alarming,” Dr S N Rai, a top scientist at NGRI told TOI. “It is going to go down and at this rate, Hyderabad will run dry in three years time if immediate steps are not taken right now,” said Rai, also the vice president of International Association of Hydro geologists.
    Scientists say every big household in the city needs a minimum 3 x 10 feet pit to collect rain water from the roof and divert it to the pits for recharge. The ground water department in Hyderabad in their report says: “Unless the situation is mitigated, there is a serious risk that in the future, more mandals in the state will come under ground water stress.”
    Ramesh Kumar, deputy director at the AP ground water department said indiscriminate digging of bore wells, and encroachment of lakes and water tanks were resulting into receding ground water levels. The city has only 300-odd lakes left out of 900 plus in the late 1960s. “As a result, we are forced to get water from Nagarjunasagar, about 140 km away from the city to meet water supply demands,” said Kumar. “Hyderabad will run dry and there is no doubt about it if this trend continues,” he added.
    NGRI scientists said the scenario in Delhi, western Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Rajasthan were very bad with ground water in 20 out of 27 tehsils in Delhi receding rapidly.