CGWS has dug 26, 700 wells in the country

New Delhi, Nov 10 (UNI) Central Ground Water Board (CGWB) of the Ministry of Water Resources has drilled over 26,700 wells in the country, including high yielding wells under ground water exploration programme in the water-deficient tribal and drought-prone areas.

Most of the high yielding wells have been handed over to the respective states for public water supply. CGWB was also involved in disaster mitigation activities in the Latur earthquake in 1993 and in Bhuj in 2001, Orissa Super cyclone in 2000 and Tsunami-affected areas of Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Andaman and Nicobar Islands during 2004 by erecting tube wells for water supplies.

Ground water exploration is one of the major activities of CGWB with an objective of discovering aquifers in different hydrogeological conditions and determination of hydraulic parameters.

Large-scale sub-surface exploration programme for ground water was initiated during 1954. In the initial years, exploratory drilling activities were confined to alluvial tracts in major river basins and sub-mountainous boundary tracts of Himalayan foothills.

In mid eighties, CGWB added 26 new DTH drilling rigs in its fleet with which the exploratory drilling in hard rock regions gained momentum.

The major thrust of exploratory drilling programme in nineties was in areas underlaid by hard rock. Another important development in first half of nineties was introduction of open hole drilling technology in India. CGWB acquired seven percussion drilling rigs for exploratory drilling in boundary/ semi-consolidated formations in Himalayan foothills from Jammu&Kashmir to Arunachal Pradesh.

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