Short Article

01-09-2023 | 10:48 AM

Sustainable groundwater management

Minister of State for Jal Shakti has informed Lok Sabha about the steps taken for sustainable groundwater management in the country.

Key Highlights:

• The Central Ground Water Board(CGWB) periodically monitors groundwater levels throughout the Country on a regional scale, through a network of monitoring wells.
• Analysis of water level data collected by CGWB during November 2022 in comparison with the decadal mean of November (2012-2021) has revealed that about 61.1% of the wells monitored have registered rise in ground water level whereas about 38.9 % wells have registered fall in water level.

Steps taken for sustainable groundwater management in the country:

• The Master Plan for Artificial Recharge to Groundwater – 2020 has been prepared with respective State counterparts.The master plan includes artificial recharge in both rural and urban areas including water scarce cities.
• Jal Shakti Abhiyan (JSA) was launched in 2019 in water stressed blocks of 256 districts in the country with the primary aim to effectively harvest the monsoon rainfall through creation of artificial recharge structures, watershed management, recharge and reuse structures, intensive afforestation and awareness generation etc.
• Further, to emphasize the importance of sustainability of groundwater for drinking water supply schemes, Jal Shakti Abhiyan: Catch the Rain 2023 is targeting “Source sustainability for drinking water” for source strengthening/ sources stabilization of rural drinking water supply schemes.