With
the green revolution of 1970's decade, India became self sufficient
in food grain production for the first time after independence. The
share of contribution to this bumper harvest, of many farmers from
states like Punjab, Harayana, Rajasthan and regions surrounding
national capital New Delhi, happens to be much larger than that of
the farmers from other areas. The reasons for this differential farm
outputs, when farmers sow the same hybrid seeds everywhere, are not
difficult to ascertain. The main reasons for superior crop outputs
from these areas are essentially related to the land, used for
cultivation. This land, known geographically as Indus river
plateau, is endowed with giant rivers that carry plenty of water in
all seasons. These rivers continuously keep augmenting the
underground or sub soil water reservoirs. With availability of
abundance of ground water, the farmers here are able to grow crops
like wheat, rice and barley round the year.
An
American agency, National Aeronautics and space administration or
NASA has some time back carried out a study of the resources of
water available on earth with the help of a pair of twin satellites
known as GRACE. According to the findings of this study, sub soil
water resources in the Indus river plateau have depleted by as much
as as 109 cubic Kilometers during period of 2002 to 2008. Since it is
impossible to estimate the total quantity of sub soil water that is
there, it is difficult to predict as to when these sub soil water
resources would dry up completely. The observations from satellites
however show that the water table is going down in this area by a
foot every year. A study carried out by world bank says that the
farmers from this area are pumping out about 63 Cubic Kilometers
volume of water each year. Out of this, only about 45 cubic
Kilometers of volume of water can be replenished by the rivers
flowing in this area.
According
to another study done by world bank, around 60% of agriculture and
80% of non urban areas in India source their requirements of water
from ground water resources. The total use of sub soil water in India
is approximately 230 cubic Kilometers, which works out as 25% of the
volume used by entire world. From the total number of Indian sub soil
resources, around 29% resources have reached semi critical or
critical stages. It is estimated that by 2025 about 60% of
groundwater resources would reach critical stage. In the states of
Gujarat, Harayana, Maharashtra, Punjab, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu at
least 54% of the ground water resources are already critical. India's
Central Ground Water Authority has already declared about 1615
resources of ground water out of total 5725 resources, as critical
and in case of 108 resources, pumping has been banned.
Depleting
stocks of ground water is not the only problem faced by the country.
The quality of ground water also appears to be deteriorating rapidly.
From about 600 districts in India, the ground water resources in
about 254 districts are found to contain Ferrous salts above danger
levels. In 224 district, groundwater has fluorides above danger
mark. In 162 districts salinity of water has increased making it non
potable. In 34 districts, arsenic percentages are now much higher.
In
some of the states, the situation is even worst. In Gujarat, out of
26 districts as many as 21 districts have ground water with high
salinity and 18 have excess fluorides. In the state of Karnataka, 21
districts out of 31 have ground water pollution with excess presence
of Ferrous salts and 20 districts with excess of fluorides. In
Rajasthan, as many as 27 districts face problem of high salinity in
ground water and 30 districts have high fluorides. Even in the
national capital region of New Delhi, 5 out of 9 districts have
ground water containing high salinity, fluorides and Ferrous
pollutants. If we consider the entire country about 33% of available
water is now non potable.
Such
polluted water, not only is a health hazard, but if consumed, is also
dangerous if supplied to crops. It has been observed that crops grown
on such polluted water, also contain all these dangerous pollutants.
The
authorities need to take two fold action. Firstly all such polluted
water must be treated to remove the pollutants before used and
secondly the the quantity that is pumped out from ground also needs
to be regulated. Recent development of Reverse Osmosis water
purifiers has been an extremely lucky break for India as it I now
possible to purify water at a very low cost. However, If above steps
are not taken up immediately, India is likely to face extremely
serious situation after next 15 to 20 years. There seems to be no
doubt about it.
27
October 2012
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