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 …
THE Delhi government plans to set up a Waterbodies Authority for proper restoration and maintenance of lakes and wetlands in the city. The proposal to bring all waterbodies under one umbrella came up at a recent review meeting of waterbodies’ restoration work. Currently, lakes and wetlands in Delhi are under …
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 …
He is a former MLA, a khandani landlord and owns more than 121 hectare (ha) apart from many local businesses. Known as the ‘sarkar’ of Sonkachch tehsil of the dry Dewas district of Madhya Pradesh (MP), Rajendhra Singh Baghel met natural farming guru Subhash Palekar about 10 years ago. Today, …
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 …
There is one being-Indian-thing, which spans the urban-rural and the rich-poor divide: our annual watch and wait for the monsoon. It begins every year, without fail as heat climbs and the monsoon advances. The farmers wait desperately because they need the rain at the right time to sow their crops. …
The Pushkar lake dried after dredging last summer. The dredging was part of a lake conservation project funded by the Centre and the Rajasthan government. The Rs 48-crore project aims to spruce up the catchment and concretize existing channels that carry the run-off. The latter is to curb losses through …
T. N. Narasimhan India's recently announced Water Mission provides a rare opportunity for informed public debate to formulate a national water policy to unify the country in equitable use of the vital resource. On May 28, 2010 the Prime Minster's Council on Climate Change, with Dr. Manmoan Singh being present, …
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 …
Mexico faces both high deforestation and severe water scarcity. The Payment for Hydrological Environmental Services (PSAH) Program was designed to complement other policy responses to the crisis at the interface of these problems. Through the PSAH, the Mexican federal government pays participating forest owners for the benefits of watershed protection …
As it prepares to transport more than a hundred thousand people between the Capital and its posh but water-starved neighbour Gurgaon each day, the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation is simultaneously doing its bit to tap every drop of rainwater. The DMRC has made extensive arrangements to catch rainwater on the …
The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs on Thursday gave its nod for continuation of the Social and Infrastructure Development Fund beyond 2007-08. This is to ensure that government initiatives in social and infrastructure development do not suffer for want of funds. The initiatives taken so far include upgrading 1,396 Industrial …
The stage is set for universalising the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act and extending it to all the 596 rural districts in the country from April 1. AICC general secretary Rahul Gandhi on Friday led the Congress MPs' delegation to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to discuss the ways and means …
The National Water Award and the Bhoomijal Samvardhan Puraskar-2007 were awarded by the Ministry of Water Resources, Government of India in September 2007 at Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhi. The award is given to those who have achieved significant success in rain-water harvesting over all zones of India.
On September 11, Hivre Bazar panchayat in Maharashtra's Ahmednagar district won the first National Water Award for community-led water conservation. POPATRAO PAWAR,sarpanch of the village, talks to SUPRIYA SINGH On the village water budget: After taking up watershed development works in the village, we realised that one of the three …
This manual deals with various aspects of investigation techniques for selection of sites, planning and design of artificial recharge structures, their economic evaluation, monitoring and technical auditing of schemes and issues related to operation and maintenance of these structures. Roof top rainwater harvesting, suitable especially for urban habitations is also …
Every year, during monsoon, it is the same story for roads across India. Potholes, potholes and more potholes. It requires a small intervention to not only help reduce costs incurred in repairing a damaged stretch but also increase groundwater levels. Yet, the government has failed to do so. The potential …
