Approach Paper for the Twelfth Five Year Plan - of Planning ...

46 Approach to the Twelfth Five Year Plan
5.5 Over the last several years, many rural habitations have been provided drinking water supply.
However, the number of ‘slipped back’ habitations has increased every year because the same aquifer is
also being tapped for irrigation. This has also led to wetlands and rivers drying up due to reduction in
base flows, which had earlier sustained them. The lowering of water tables has also caused, in many cases,
contamination with arsenic, fluoride and other harmful substances.
5.6 Water quality issues also arise due to chemical pollution through excessive fertiliser use and reckless
dumping of untreated waste into our rivers. Only about 30 per cent of the total sewage generated in the
country is actually treated before being dumped into available water bodies.
Maintenance of Surface Water Bodies
5.7 We have over a million water bodies comprising of lakes, reservoirs and tanks. Their storage capacity
has been eroded by poor maintenance and siltation, as well as other forms of degradation, including
invasion of alien water flora. Concerted efforts are needed to engage in the process of de-siltation and
restitution of these water bodies through treatment of their catchment areas so that they can play the
fruitful purpose of providing capacity to store rainwater, water for drinking and other purposes and
lend themselves to fisheries. Ground water management needs to be promoted in a sustainable manner
to increase productivity of land especially in Eastern and North eastern region where ample untapped
ground water resources are available.
Ground Water Management
5.8 Ground water will continue to be a major resource for both irrigation and drinking purposes. It is
vital to ensure that this resource is used in a sustainable manner. For this we must greatly expand the scope
of rainwater harvesting and ground water recharge. Preliminary studies suggest that the extent of recharge
that is possible with the existing precipitation is extremely high in the alluvial plains where the rates of
recharge are high. In the more rocky areas of Central India, where recharge rates are lower, rainwater
harvesting and ground water recharge needs to be supplemented by the creation of rain-fed small-sized
reservoir/water bodies, including farm ponds and dug wells to impound rainwater. This needs to be done
by converging the MGNREGA with the Integrated Watershed Management Programme.
Aquifer Mapping
5.9 Since groundwater is the main source of water in India, special emphasis is needed on obtaining
an accurate picture of groundwater resources, including a comprehensive mapping of our aquifers at
a watershed scale, with their storage and transmission characteristics. Our current network of around
60,000 observation wells is completely inadequate given the explosive rise in groundwater use in recent
years through nearly 30 million groundwater structures. During the Twelfth Plan, we need to move from
a ratio of 1: 500 at present towards a ratio of at least 1:100 between observation wells and groundwater
use structures so that we gain a more accurate idea of actual groundwater use.
Stakeholder Aquifer Management
5.10 Based on the aquifer mapping exercise, we need to develop sustainable groundwater management
plans for each aquifer. This requires action on the ground involving partnerships of stakeholders at the
village-level with hydro-geologists and social mobilizers who would guide collective sharing and sequential
use of groundwater based on a careful understanding of the storage and transmission characteristics of
different aquifers in each of the hydro-geological settings outlined in the MTA of the Eleventh Plan.