Amid the raging debate over the prevailing water crisis in Bundelkhand in scorching summer, the dossiers of the Uttar Pradesh government show that over 4,220 water bodies have ‘vanished’ in the last one decade from this rugged region.
“This is official that over 4,250 water bodies have disappeared in the last one decade. But how all this happened no one knows. The district magistrates and tehsildars of all the seven districts of Bundelkhand could not explain where these water bodies have gone,” a senior official in the Revenue department told ‘The Pioneer’ here recently.
In 1950, Bundelkhand had 21,785 water bodies out of the 8,75,435 water bodies in the state but gradually this number has come down. By the year 2016, 4,020 water bodies had vanished from Bundelkhand -- 151 in Chitrakoot, 869 in Banda, 541 in Hamirpur and 2,459 in Jhansi.
“In the last three years over 200 more water bodies have disappeared. This could be because of lack of rain in the last few years, taking the number of lost water bodies to around 4,220,” the official said.
Bundelkhand has one of the lowest levels of per capita income and human development in the country, largely due to the frequent droughts caused by water scarcity. Agriculture experts opine that the vanished water bodies and community-managed ponds have resulted in a fall in the water level and frequent droughts.
Raja Bhaiya of non-governmental organisation Vidya Dham Samiti that works in Banda said that the ponds act as sponge and help in recharging ground water during rains.
“Land sharks are responsible for the disappearance of water bodies. The lure of lucre has enticed the administration to look the other way as builders and illegal miners exploited the water bodies of Bundelkhand,” he said.
The issue came to light for the first time through a right to information (RTI) application in which the applicants sought details of water bodies in seven districts of Bundelkhand -- Chitrakoot, Banda, Mahoba, Lalitpur, Jalaun, Jhansi and Hamirpur.
The RTI application prompted the Revenue department to conduct surveys to assess the magnitude of encroachment over water bodies in the state. At the same time, in 2012, the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court asked the authorities to ensure that no land-grabbing was allowed in this way. The court also directed the authorities to inform it about the ponds that had been covered and constructions had come over them. It also directed them to furnish information about the existing ponds so that further steps could be taken in this matter.
After the court order, the government said that encroachments were removed from 3,852 water bodies. But the government was not clear how many of them were in the Bundelkhand region.
Raja Bhaiya said that water was a fundamental right. “Even the Supreme Court has ordered that the protection of natural lakes and ponds honours the most basic fundamental right -- the right to life -- which is guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution.”
“Now we have reached a scenario where people are grappling to get a bucket of water. Most of the ponds and lakes have gone dry. The water level has dropped ominously low. This has happened because we are not protecting our water bodies,” he said.
