Concerned over depleting groundwater level, Haryana plans awareness campaign

Kadian on Friday chaired a review meeting with the officers from 14 districts which have been selected under the scheme. The review meeting was called by the World Bank to check the progress and to discuss the way forward. World Bank officials Satya Priya and M K Goel were also present in the meeting. In terms of performance under the scheme till now, Sirsa has been ranked at top spot, while Faridabad is at the bottom.

The Atal Bhujal Yojana is a groundwater management scheme launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2019 on the 95th birth anniversary of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee with an outlay of Rs 6,000 crore – out of which Rs 3,000 crore is being provided by the World Bank as loan and Rs 3,000 crore as matching contribution from the central government for seven states. The funds under the scheme are being provided to the states concerned as grants-in-aid.

According to Kadian, the purpose of the scheme is to improve groundwater management in seven states, including Haryana. Kadian said: “As many as 14 districts – 36 blocks covering 1,669 gram panchayats – of Haryana have been identified for the planned intervention where the groundwater consumption and groundwater declining rate were higher. For the effective implementation of the scheme, it has been emphasised that relevant government departments executing schemes related to sustainable groundwater management must arrive at a common platform to bring in convergence.”

According to the data compiled by the groundwater cell of the state irrigation department sourcing it from field units and Central Ground Water Authority, nearly 41% villages of the state have been found in the category of “groundwater stressed”, while 18% have been found in the classification of “potential groundwater stressed”. Based on these figures, the Haryana Water Resources (conservation, regulation and management) Authority has put 1,780 villages in the red category identifying them as severely groundwater stressed villages, while 1,041 villages have been put in the pink zone as they were found in the “groundwater stressed” category. The state has a total of 6,885 villages.