Ground water level goes down in State

The status of ground water in the State at the end of the year 1998 has been brought out in detail by the Central Ground Water Board CGWB, in its report titled Trends of ground water levels in Maharashtra and Union Territory of Dadra and Nagar Haveli8217;. The report also compares the ground water situation in this decade 1989-1998 with the situation of last decade 1979-1988.

Water level decline has been prominently noticed in a large area extending from Amravati to Buldana, a large area around Jalgaon anda moderately large area around Aurangabad and Jalna. Few isolated spots in Nagpur district including Kondhali, Satnawri and Nayakund on Amravati Road have shown a noticeable decline.

The water level decline in majority of these areas have been recorded at 0.2 meters per year, which means that the water levels have gone down by approximately two meters during the decade. In some of the areas the water level decline rate is more than 0.4 per cent per year, which means a decline of about four meters during the decade, parts of Jalgaon district and Warud in Amravati districts fall within this category.

Other districts where ground water levels have declined by about two meters during the last decade include Ahmednagar, Osmanabad, Latur, Solapur, Nanded, Parbhani, Yavatmal, Bhandara and Chandrapur.

Deepest water levels in the range of 10-20 meters below ground surface were observed in almost all districts of Marathwada except Nanded and in few small areas in Jalna and Parbhani.

Speaking to The IndianExpress, Santosh Kumar Sharma, regional director of the central region office of the CGWB, said that in most of the areas, the decline could be attributed to over-development overuse of ground water, where it was already scarcely available. Most of the areas fall within dark blocks, which mean talukas, where the percentage of development of ground water is more than 85 per cent.