FOR the past two years 1,500-odd families in a small town of Tripura have not received a modest drinking water supply. Reason: a dispute over water withdrawal from the Feni river, the international border between India and Bangladesh. Though the Feni passes through Sabroom, the town entirely depends on groundwater. …
On September 12, the Supreme Court dismissed an appeal filed by PepsiCo India, questioning increased water charges with retrospective effect from 2001. They must now clear Rs 70 lakh as arrears in water bills. A 2009, the Bombay High Court directive had upheld the Maharashtra government'ss decision to charge industries …
It has been six years since the July 26 deluge, but the fear of flood during monsoons still lingers among Mumbaikars. Especially among the residents of Mumbai’s western suburbs who have been facing severe waterlogging for the past six years. The city municipal corporation claims to be well prepared this …
It’s been more than seven months. Farmer representatives from 12 villages in Nawalgarh are on a sit-in protest outside the sub-divisional magistrate’s office. Their demand: do not give our fertile land to industry. Three cement giants are eyeing this limestone-rich area in Jhunjhunu district of Rajasthan. Limestone is the prime …
About two years ago, a fire broke out in the Biligiri Rangaswami Temple Wildlife Sanctuary in Karnataka. The police arrested 35 community leaders of Soliga tribe for causing the fire. Five people still have cases against them. Yet the forest community recently submitted a bold proposal to the Centre advocating …
ACTING on complaints of severe water shortage in Gurgaon, the Punjab and Haryana High Court on May 20 asked the Central Ground Water Authority, or CGWA, to provide the details of groundwater levels in the fast-expanding industrial and financial hub. It set August 5 as the deadline. In February, the …
Mohan Kohli, a famous agricultural scientist from India, had been involved with the agriculture sector in Paraguay over the last three decades for the improvement of wheat cultivation and production. And it is widely believed that due to Kohli
AN EARTHQUAKE measuring 8.9 on the Richter scale recently shook Japan, causing a massive tsunami. Changes in groundwater electrical conductivity and soil radon gas can help predict an earthquake in quake-prone regions, according to a team of geologists in India. Earlier studies by Japanese scientists have shown that prior to …
Call it the fallout of rapid urbanisation or plain negligence of the authorities, groundwater in Dhaka is sinking at an alarming rate. According to a study by the Institute of Water Modelling in Dhaka in 2009, groundwater in the city is going down three metres every year. It has sunk …
GROUNDWATER is becoming important to sustain agriculture, industry and drinking water. But as we exploit aquifers, more water becomes part of the hydrological cycle. A recent study shows evaporation and precipitation of groundwater is responsible for a fourth of the annual sea level rise of 3.1 mm. The study, to …
Tango with nature India has been using lakes, ponds and baolis (step wells) since ancient times ('What monsoon means', July 16-31, 2010). Delhi was once replete with water bodies. In the past 50 years, government agencies started disbanding natural ponds, lakes and baolis, declaring their water untested, and therefore, unfit …
MAHABUBNAGAR A Shekhar, 25, committed suicide a year ago. A resident of Burgupalle village in Andhra Pradesh’s Mahabub - nagar district, he had bought half a hectare (ha) for growing paddy. He borrowed Rs 1.5 lakh to sink three borewells but did not find groundwater. Shekhar could not repay the …
The Water, Land and Trees Act (WALTA) was enacted in 2002. Meant to regulate groundwater use, the Act requires farmers to register their borewells with the mandal revenue office after getting clearance from the district groundwater office. Farmers like Muniratnam Naidu in Chittoor district laugh at the idea of taking …
The quantum of groundwater Andhra Pradesh received earlier from 100,000 borewells is now obtained by drilling 260,000 borewells, said A K Jain, special secretary to the state’s irrigation and command area development department. B Peddiraji, tehsildar of Butchayyapeta in Visakhapatnam district, added there is tremendous pressure on groundwater, with the …
The million-odd users of groundwater in Andhra Pradesh need a new form of regulation, everybody agrees. The system based on permits—under WALTA—only adds to the transaction cost of farmers. The fact is there is a desperation to dig and then dig deeper. There is no estimation how much the farmers—private …
A COMMITTEE of Parliament visited the slaughterhouse in Meerut on June 10 to enquire if it was polluting the Kali Nadi river that flows through the city. A seasonal river that once provided irrigation and drinking water to 44 villages in Meerut district of Uttar Pradesh, Kali Nadi has turned …
The population growth, economic development with the consequent anthropogenic activities at the Nile Delta of Egypt addresses the present-day hydro-environmental status and quality deterioration trends of surface Nile River water. The hydrochemical fingerprints of surface waters revealed the effects of points and non-points sources of pollution. The relative low Cl- …
Groundwater, which has emerged as India's prime adaptive mechanism in times of drought, will play a crucial role this year since the aquifers were recharged in 2006-08. The impact of the drought of 2009 will therefore be less severe than the drought of 2002. Beyond the immediate response, we need …
Groundwater is a primary source of fresh water in many parts of the world. Some regions are becoming overly dependent on it, consuming groundwater faster than it is naturally replenished and causing water tables to decline unremittingly. Indirect evidence suggests that this is the case in northwest India, but there …
The National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC) describes the features of National Water Mission as under: A National Water Mission will be mounted to ensure integrated water resource management helping to conserve water, minimize wastage and ensure more equitable distribution both across and within states. The Mission will take …
