India News | Only 22,800 Monitoring Wells as Against Proposed 35,000: Govt
Get latest articles and stories on India at LatestLY. There are only 22,800 monitoring wells as against the proposed 35,000, the government has told a parliamentary standing committee, which has advised it to take effective steps to increase the number of observation wells with digital water level recorders and telemetry to monitor the groundwater level.
New Delhi, Mar 23 (PTI) There are only 22,800 monitoring wells as against the proposed 35,000, the government has told a parliamentary standing committee, which has advised it to take effective steps to increase the number of observation wells with digital water level recorders and telemetry to monitor the groundwater level.
A parliamentary standing committee report, tabled in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday, noted that the Central Ground Water Board (CGWB) had a network of around 15,000 monitoring wells in 2012 and it was proposed to increase the number to 35,000 through in-house as well as the participatory mode.
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However, as of December 31, 2021, the CGWB had only 22,800 monitoring wells, as the activities under the participatory groundwater management component of the scheme for 2012-17 could not take off, the committee was told.
"The Committee are of the view that measurements of water levels in wells are the most fundamental indicator of the status of this resource and critical to meaningful evaluation of the quantity and quality of groundwater and its interaction with surface water," it said.
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In order to achieve this objective, the committee recommended the Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation to take effective steps to increase the number of observation wells with digital water level recorders and telemetry to monitor the groundwater level.
Taking cognizance of the fact that only 19 states and Union territories have enacted the Model Bill for regulation and development of groundwater so far, the committee expressed its disappointment that the advantages of the Model Bill in restoring and ensuring groundwater security through the availability of sufficient quantity and appropriate quality of groundwater to all stakeholders in rural and urban areas remain untapped.
It, therefore, urged the department to make all concerted efforts to persuade the remaining states to enact this important bill at the earliest. The efforts or steps taken in this regard may be apprised to the committee within three months of the presentation of the report to Parliament.
The standing committee has asked the Centre to intervene pro-actively and engage all the stakeholders in addressing the contentious issues related to river-linking.
In this regard, the committee also called upon the Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation to redesign its strategies according to the socio-political and economic realities of the regions where it wishes to implement projects for inter-linking of rivers.
"The department may also, in consultation with the Ministry of Finance, work out some solution in the form of providing various concessions like devolution of larger share of tax resources and grants, tax relief, tax holidays etc. to encourage the states to opt for this important scheme," the panel said in the report.
It said the Centre's role assumes critical importance and it feels that it is high time that the Union government intervenes pro-actively and engages all the stakeholders in addressing the contentious issues of river-linking projects.
The committee expressed its concern over the under-utilisation of budgetary allocations of such a magnitude under different schemes of the department towards the major part of financial year 2021-22 and felt that it is not a one-off event and has become a continuous trend, as indicated by the recurring surrender of the allocated funds by the department to the Ministry of Finance.
The committee said it is "constrained" to take the view that the department has been lackadaisical in the implementation of various programmes and schemes run by it, thus resulting in surrendering of such a large amount of funds.
(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)