World Water Day: Restoring groundwater in India to make our vital resource visible

By George Rajkumar, 

The conversation around India’s diminishing groundwater sources is not new, but today due to the never-ending cycle of overuse and abuse of groundwater in the country, we have reached a critical point. With 16% of the world’s population and only 4% of the world’s freshwater resources , India has relied heavily on groundwater to meet its growing water demand for several decades. 

As per the estimates of the central groundwater board of India, 17% groundwater blocks in the country are overexploited with 5% of them being in the critical stage. Since groundwater in India plays a significant role for our communities, rural livelihood and the agriculture sector, it is imperative for policy makers to protect this natural resource and make the country a water secure nation. With the theme of ‘Making the invisible visible’, World Water Day on 22nd of March highlights the need to lessen our dependence on groundwater. Mechanisms need to be put in place that will help the government to partner with private corporations, NGOs and think tanks enabling them to introduce policies and regulations for conserving and replenishing our groundwater resources. 

Intervention programs is the need of the hour

Instances both global and in India have shown us the extent to which groundwater depletion can affect a country or region. For instance, in 2017, 30% of the population in Jakarta relied on groundwater due to the poor planning of water infrastructure. This had a direct impact on the livelihood of poor residents with 88% of them having to buy water from neighbours, spending upwards of 25% of their monthly income . Similarly, the 2019 water scarcity in Chennai highlighted the need for planned industrialization and urbanization to avoid crisis like water shortage. 

Intervention programs will aid in protecting our natural resources by fostering groundwater recharge through natural as well as artificial methods. The Central Groundwater Board under Ministry of Jal Shakti needs to implement projects in mission mode like a National Groundwater Renewal Mission to provide the much-needed impetus to groundwater conservation across districts. Such an initiative should also consider the integration of technology with traditional methods to protect groundwater sources.

For example, in a country like Denmark, drinking water comes entirely from the groundwater resources. Denmark has been successfully protecting its resources through mechanisms like groundwater modelling, helping authorities with information for optimised groundwater abstraction. Danish utilities have been using the Danish-developed Well Field Model to plan the abstraction from the reservoir with considerations of groundwater reservoir preservation, acceptable water quality, and optimisation of energy consumption.

The Indian government has also given impetus towards conservation practices with projects of national importance like National Spatial Data Infrastructure and National Hydrology Project. These projects are specifically designed to garner data and help policy makers take informed decisions at the local and national level on natural resource management, environment restoration, disaster mitigation among others.  For advanced analysis of data, Government can also partner with private players to strengthen this ecosystem. Such a move will provide further boost to schemes for rainwater harvesting, watershed management, aquifer recharging and surface water restoration activities. 

Rainwater harvesting has benefits ranging from reduced energy use, non-potable water usage for commercial and domestic purposes including economic benefits. For example, drought prone villages in Maharashtra have integrated traditional and modern methods of water conservation to overcome water crisis. Proper planning at the local level along with state and central schemes have motivated community participation through installation of rooftop rainwater harvesting systems, enabling 1,00,00 villagers across four villages in the state to have access to water throughout the year. 

Similarly, the renewal mission can introduce measures to simplify and address the needs of smart water meter installation, educating farmers on the benefits of growing less water intensive crops and large-scale implementation of solar pumps. Another initiative that will drastically help is to include the mandatory adoption of recharging wells for farmlands. Since farmlands require an abundance of groundwater, recharging wells will help in the replenishment of aquifers and enhance groundwater levels. 

Partnerships for faster execution of projects

Restoring our natural water resources like ponds, lakes and water bodies will further help us in our endeavor against climate change while making a positive impact on our ecosystem. Partnering with relevant stakeholders at the grass-root level will bring the much-required change by ensuring that the problem is addressed by taking into consideration the effects it will have on the local communities. 

In 2020 Grundfos and Cognizant joined hands to restore the 100-acre Sembakkam Lake in Chennai, in partnership with The Nature Conservancy, Care Earth Trust and Indian Institute of Technology Madras. The project that is expected to be completed this year will help clear the lake of solid wastes, improve the lake’s storage capacity by 50%, enhance groundwater recharge, improve water quality and benefit 10000 households and conserve the local biodiversity consisting of around 180 plant species (including 11 aquatic species) and more than 65 bird species. 

Educate and engage to make society more aware about groundwater 

Today, humans are already facing the brunt of severe climate change in terms of floods, droughts etc. The focus also needs to be on the larger narrative of climate change and the roles and responsibilities that both the society and an individual needs to play towards safeguarding our groundwater. 

It is without a doubt that groundwater is a national lifeline in India. Inculcating the right mindset in people regarding usage and conservation of groundwater with focused and demonstrative education is essential. Ramifications for misuse of groundwater should also be introduced to make people, industries adhere to rules and processes. Embedding technology into the very framework of groundwater distribution is also fundamental to increase groundwater accessibility and to ensure sustainability during future extractions of the resource.      

(The author is Country President, Grundfos India. Views expressed are personal and do not reflect the official position or policy of Financial.Express.com)