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Even when the data is available it is not easy to attribute the increase in water levels solely
to watershed treatment. However, it should be understood that the watershed development
programme has much broader agenda than the groundwater recharge and should be looked
at as a positive step towards sustainable land and water management.
Watershed treatment or artificial recharge of groundwater would definitely help the aquifer
to improve its annual recharge. But, researchers found that only a marginal improvement
is possible through watershed treatment. Groundwater Estimation Committee (GEC) puts
the increase in annual recharge, as a result of watershed development, by 2% of the
rainfall received.
It is often noticed in the watershed villages that farmers come up with the pleas for
construction of more wells, as they had improved the groundwater situation. Private drillings
also took place with the hope that they would find water, even if they had earlier drilled
several failed borewells. Looking from a water balance angle, the benefit accrued by the
watershed treatment is nullified by the increased groundwater extraction, in the post
treatment scenario. This brought the situation back to square one.
Watershed treatment, artificial recharge, afforestation, etc., are the programs that target
the supply side of the groundwater management. In other sense, they try to put more
water into the ground, logically for more use. So far, very little attention is paid to the
demand side management, the other side of the same coin. This means the judicious use
of the available water. The critical technological challenge is to use less water more efficiently
to produce the same or greater benefits.
It is very easy to convince the farmer for supply side management, because his/her
contribution is very limited. Moreover, s/he looks at it as an opportunity to increase the
draft. On the other hand, demand side management is quite unattractive, initially, as s/he
does not see any reason to curb wastage of water, know more about crop-water requirement,
change cropping pattern, or close some of the borewells. In quantitative terms also farmer
has no clue what would happen over a period of time, if the present water draft continued.
However, some positive trends towards demand side management of groundwater are
evident. According to NABARD, demand for loans to purchase piping and complete drip
and sprinkler systems is growing rapidly. However, much of the demand for these higher
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