Plan panel raises groundwater alarm

Sounding alarm bells against over-extraction of groundwater for irrigation and allied purposes,the Planning Commission has asked the government not to sanction any fresh irrigation projects unless the existing ones were completed. It has suggested to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that rational pricing of water and electricity be introduced and support made conditional under Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission JNNURM for ensuring adequate water treatment and re-cycling facilities.

In a presentation to the Prime Minister on April 6,the commission unveiled its Integrated Action Plan for Sustainable Water Management and said available satellite data reveal significant non-renewable depletion of groundwater levels in the alluvial tracts of North India. The situation was more precarious in 65 per cent hard rock areas.

Plan panel Member Mihir Shah,who made the presentation argued that the gap between the potential created and utilised has grown in the recent years primarily due to lack of proper operation and maintenance as well as non-completion of command area development CAD. He said recovery as a proportion of working expenses in irrigation over the last 20 years has averaged around 20 per cent. These low water charges encourage inefficient water use and generates a tendency for the tillers to shift towards water-intensive crops, he said.

The commission told Singh that it would help the Ministry of Water Resources to develop a new scheme to upscale groundwater management initiatives. It also pitched for merging rural drinking water supply and total sanitation campaign to eliminate groundwater contamination.