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I fÖUnJwfllêr Availability and Pollution The Growing Debate over Resource Condition in India Vikram Sarabhai Centre for Development Interaction - VIKSAT Natural Heritage Institute Selected TiÜes OtV Wakf from VIKSAT 1 Local Water Management Initiatives: NGO Activities in Gujarat; (Ed) Dr. Marcus Moench & M. Dinesh Kunw.(E). 2 Proceedings of the Workshop on Water Management; India's Groundwater SS^ Moench. Dr. Susan Ttanupi* & M.Du«h Kumar.(E). 3 Participatory Mapping As a Diagnostic Tool for Groundwater Studies; by M. Dinesh Kumar, Praful J. Patel & Dr. Marcus Moench. (E). 4. Groundwater Management: Role of Cropping Pattern & Irrigation Water Management; by M. Dinesh Kumar & M.M. Chauhan. (E/G) 5. Tube Well Turn Over: A Study of Groundwater Irrigation Organisations in Mehsana; by M. Dinesh Kumar. (E/G). 6. Groundwater Law: The Growing Debate; (Ed) Marcus Moench.(E). 7. Groundwater Management: Supply Dominated Focus of Traditional, NGO and Government Efforts; (Ed) Dr. Marcus Moench. (E). 8. Groundwater Availability & Pollution: Growing Debates Over Resource Condition in India; (Ed) Dr. Marcus Moench.(E). 9. Electricity Prices: A Tool for Groundwater Management in India?; (Ed) Dr. Marcus Moench. (E) 10. Groundwater Management: Future Options; by M. Dinesh Kumar (G) 11. Managing Common Pool Groundwater Resources: Identifying Management Regimes; by M. Dinesh Kumar. (E) 12. Social Reproduction Vs Economic Reproduction: A Study of Women's Role in Agriculture; by M. Dinesh Kumar and Anjal Prakash. (E) 13 Banking on Cooperation: A Study of Irrigation Management Institutions in Gujarat by M. Dinesh Kumar, Shashikant Chopde & Anjal Prakash (E) E = English = Gujarati Groundwater Availability and Pollution The Growing Debate over Resource Condition in India abrary mo international Water >p;1 sanitation Centre t-Vj' +,31 70 30 639 80 l-'*:y- .;31 70 35 899 «" Edited by Marcus Moench Vikram Sarabhai Centre for Development Interaction • VIKSAT Natural Heritage Institute VIKSAT Nehru Foundation for Development Thaltej Tekra Ahmedabad, Gujarat 380 054 INDIA ACKNOWLEDGEMENT The workshop on "Water Management: India's Groundwater Challenge" at which most of the papers in this monograph were initially presented, was funded by the Ford Foundation, International Development Research Centre and Aga Khan Foundation. Additional editorial assistance was provided by the Netherlands Embassy. The Pacific Institute for Studies in Environment, Development and Security played a large role in the project leading upto the workshop. Without the institutional support provided by them, the papers in this monograph would not have been produced. LIBRARY IRC PO Box 93190, 2509 AD THE HAGUE Tel.: +31 70 30 689 80 Fax:+31,70 35 899 64 BARCODE: LO: FOREWORD The problem of ground water depletion is increasingly Kelt by everyone in more than one ways. The resultant scarcity and the deterioration of quality render it difficult to use water even for drinking in several parts of the country. For instance, most part of the Ramanathapurafn district in Tamil Nadu suffers from salinity. Added to this, demand from industries for water is met from groundwatcr sources leading to over draft conditions. While this excessive withdrawal brings to fore the deterioration in the quality of water, the used water is discharged as effluents from the industries which in turn affect soil, and surface and ground water sources. While aquifers of Mehsana in Gujarat are being tapped at 170% of its capacity, hundreds of tanneries in North Arcot district in Tamil Nadu have rendered several surface water and ground water sources unfit for human and animal consumption. Drinking water is transported in tankers and sold in some of the villages. Examples such as this are aplenty. Unless we make serious efforts to intervene, there may be permanent damage caused to the water sources, especially the ground water sources. Though the groundwater is categorised as replenishable. several times, excessive withdrawals over long periods leads to structural changes that are perhaps non-reversible. VIKSAT facilitated debates on these issues at practical and policy levels in a Workshop titled Water Management: India's Groundwater Challenge held during December 14-16, 1993. The workshop was very successful in the sense that vast literature was presented and debated during the three days. This valuable literature was codified by VIKSAT in the form of a series of publications under various themes. The present volume Groundwater Availability and Pollution is one among them. Most of these titles are out of stock, and some have been reprinted. This is the second reprint being published on demand. We hope our publications including the present one will continue to facilitate meaningful debates leading to policy actions at various levels.your Comments and suggestions for improvement are most welcome. Srinivas Mudrakartha Director CONTENTS Preface 1 Marcus Moench Ground water Quality in Critically Polluted Areas -A Project of CPCB 4 D,K. Biswas, Mita Sharma Status of Groundwater Development and its Impact on Groundwater Quality -An Appraisal 11 N. Kittu Access to Groundwater: A Hard-rock Perspective 20 Shashi Kolavalli, L.K. Atheeq When Good Water Becomes Scarce: Objectives and Criteria For Assessing Overdevelopment in Groundwater Resources 50 Dr. Marcus Moench Overexploitation of Groundwater Resource-Experiences From Tamil Nadu 70 K. Palanisami, R. Balasubramanian Emerging Problems, Options & Strategies in the Development and Management of Groundwater Resources in India 86 T.S. Raju Groundwater Overexploitation in the Low Rainfall Areas of Karnataka State 99 D.S.K. Rao Forward to Backward Agriculture: A Study of Intensive Well Irrigation in Kolar District of Karnataka 123 5. T. Somashekara Reddy Need for Realistic Assessment of Groundwater Potential in India 140 R.S. Saksena Sustainability of Groundwater for Water Supply: Competition Between the Needs for Agriculture and Drinking Water 153 R TJ. Wijdemans PREFACE Marcus Moench Senior Staff Scientist, Natural Heritage Institute All papers contained in this monograph were initially prepared for the Workshop on Water Management: India's Groundwater Challenge, held at VIKS AT in Gujarat on December 14-16,1993. This monograph is the third in a series of five being produced based on the workshop papers. Over the past decade, debates over the sustainability of groundwater use patterns have been slowly growing in many parts of India. In locations such as Mehsana District in Gujarat and Coimbatore District in Tamil Nadu, water tables are dropping and groundwater aquifers are being depleted. In other areas, groundwater pollution problems are becoming evident. Nationwide, as R.S. Saksena documents in this volume, the number of wells with electric or diesel powered pumps has grown dramatically since 1950. Figures recently produced by the Central Ground Water Board indicate that nationwide the number of wells has grown from 3,865,400 in 1950-51 to 15,566,600 in 1991-92 and the number of diesel and electric pumps from 87,000 to 13,921,000 over the same period.1 Installation of wells and pumps has been and continues to be virtually unregulated. Pollution is also recognised as a concern. The Central Pollution Control Board is now initiating activities in 22 sites which have been identified as critically polluted (Biswas etal. this volume). Nationwide, industrial activities have grown greatly since Independence. With economic liberalisation, these can be expected to grow still more rapidly over the coming decades. Urban areas are also increasing in size and with them the potential for groundwater pollution from concentrated waste flows. In the above context, logic suggests that over-development of the available resource will occur, particularly in sensitive areas. Evidence from areas such as the districts indicated above and the 22 polluted sites identified by the CPCB indicate that this has indeed happened. Debates now center on the extent of groundwater over-development and pollution problems, their implications for policies supporting further development, and their consequences both for agriculture and vulnerable populations. As the papers in this monograph indicate, groundwater pollution has received far less attention than problems associated with falling water tables. This is not because groundwater pollution is a less serious concern than over-development — over the long-term it may have far more serious implications for water availability ~ but because data on the nature and extent of pollution are lacking. The Central Pollution Control Board is just initiating a first round of studies in areas which, on the basis of VIP and citizen complaints, are known to be critically polluted. With a network of only 480 sampling locations to cover the entire country, there is a 1 Personal Communication, CGWB, 1995. limited amount of baseline pollution data that can be collected (Biswas etal. this monograph). Furthermore, virtually all work has focused on point source pollution from industries and urban areas. With rapid growth in the use of fertilisers and pesticides, logic suggests that non-point source pollution from agricultural activities may pose a far greater threat to groundwater supplies. However persuasive logic may be, data on groundwater pollution are lacking and so debates tend to resolve little. Where debates regarding over-development of groundwater resources are concerned, generally optimistic assessments of availability by the Central Ground Water Board and concerned state

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