SHORTAGE OF WATER IN RAJASTHAN
The Central Ground
Water Board (CGWB), under the Ministry of Water Resources regularly
monitors the ground water levels in various parts of the country,
including Rajasthan, through a network of National Hydrograph
Monitoring Stations. A comparison of May, 2002 water level data
with the decade (1992-2001) mean water level data indicates decline
upto 2 meters in ground water level in Bundi, Banswara, Dhaulpur,
Udiapur, Bharatpur, Baran, Dungarpur, Karauli, Alwar and Jhalawar
districts, between 2-4 metres in Sikar, Dausa, Dungarpur, Jhunjhunu
and Alwar district and more than 4 meters in Jalore, Sirohi, Bhilwara,
Jaipur, Pali, Dausa and Tonk districts of Rajasthan.
The ‘dark’ blocks
are worked out based on ground water resources estimation. Based
on such estimation for the State of Rajasthan, there are 74 over-exploited
blocks, where annual extraction of ground water is more than annual
recharge and 20 dark blocks, where annual extraction is 85% to
100% of the annual recharge.
CGWB has drilled
198 exploratory tubewells in Rajasthan during January, 2001 to
December, 2002 out of which, 154 tubewells were successful and
all the successful wells have been handed over free of cost to
the State Government of Rajasthan. Moreover, the CGWB has approved
18 projects of rain water harvesting and ground water recharge
in the State at a cost of Rs.122.24 lakh.
This information
was given by the Union Minister of State for Water Resources,
Smt. Bijoya Chakravarty in a written reply to a question from
Shri A. C. Jose in the Lok Sabha today.
