Groundwater recharging project in Punjab, Haryana

Chandigarh, Mar 29 (UNI) The Central Groundwater Board (CGB) has launched a pilot project for artificial recharging of ground water to arrest the receding ground water table in the North West agrarian states of Punjab and Haryana.

The water table is receeding at an alarming rate of 30 cms to 40 cms in an year in Haryana and Punjab, Superintending Hydrogeologist A K Bhatia, a scientist with CGB (north west) said here today.

Mr Bhatia said the pilot project has been launched in Chandigarh, Panchkula, Karnal, Panipat and Mahendergarh in Haryana and Mohali, Jalandhar and Patiala in Punjab.A few more areas in the two states are also likely to be covered under this project later.

He said under the artificial recharging of ground water process, rain and surplus water is pumped into special structures directly put into the aquifer layers of the earth for storage purposes.

Mr Bhatia said the foremost reason behind the depleting water table is ''increased water consumption''.In this context he referred to the large acreage under paddy in the two states as this crop consumes a great deal of water. This has led to increased tubewells in the two states.

He said the water level in 70 per cent area of Haryana and 80 per cent of Punjab had gone down.Suprisingly in 30 per cent area of Haryana the water level has gone up,which has led to water logging,he added.

He said Hisar, Jind, Sirsa, Kaithal, Jhajjar and Rohtak in Haryana, Ferozpur, Faridkot, Muktsar and Bathinda in Punjab, water level has gone up as a result of increased canal irrigation and absence of tubewells, which is an alarming sign for the farmers of the region as water will clog the soil and destroy the crop.

To maintain the balance, he suggested that canal irrigation should be minimised in the regions where the water table is high and farmers should be encouraged to install tubewells, so that the excess ground water can be utillised.

Mr Bhatia said that in the remaning districts of Punjab the water table had fallen to a great extent due to excessive digging of tubewells.In fact in some areas of Punjab the water table had gone down to such an extent that submersively tubewells were being used to draw water.

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