Is Odisha hurtling fast towards an acute water crisisIJ It seems so as the water table in the State is on the depletion mode if one goes by the revelation by the Central Ground Water Board’s (CGWB) analysis of water levels in the wells across the State in the pre-monsoon period from 2014 to 2017.
According to the CGWB data, when in the pre-monsoon period of 2014 the water levels measured in a whopping 62 per cent of sample wells across the State showed a rise in the water level with respect to the average of mean pre-monsoon period of 2004-2013; the number of wells showing rise in pre-monsoon 2017 has slipped to a mere 39 per cent. This fall has not been all of a sudden. The numbers dwindled to below 50 per cent in 2015 and to around 36 per cent in 2016. Notably, in the pre-monsoon period of 2017, as many as 60 per cent of wells showed a dip in the water level from mere 37 per cent in 2014. Moreover, over 5 per cent of the wells have recorded a dip by as high as 4 meters.
A glance at the district-wise data reveals that most of the brunt has been borne by water-stressed districts. Moreover, the State headquarters district Khordha has not been immune to this depleting water trend, reveal the data. Officials in the CGWB reasoned the steep fall to multifarious reasons ranging from decline in rainfall amount to illegal and indiscriminate boring activities.
Why farming and industries are not a reason behind the phenomenon is because the net annual draft of water for irrigation and industries is around 4.7 BCM a year against the net groundwater availability of 16.7 BCM a year, which puts the groundwater exploitation at around 28 per cent against the national average of 62 per cent. Therefore, the steep fall over the years is attributed to poor re-charge capacity in the State and rampant boring in the regions where water-stress is a norm.
In water-stressed districts like Ganjam, Balangir, Nuapada, Dhenkanal, Mayurbhanj, Koraput and Kandhamal, the respective district administration has not specified or mapped the water-stressed areas in their respective district; as a consequence, there has not been any restriction in depth of the boring wells sunk in the area. Overexploitation of water in such stressed areas coupled with poor recharge structures resulted in the fall in the water level, especially so when the State has been facing erratic rainfalls from the period 2010 to 2017.
How poor the water-recharge capacity in Odisha is evident from the fact that nearly 5,700 water bodies under the minor irrigation system are defunct. Moreover, water recharge and harvesting structures built in water-parched areas under the MGNREGA have slid from nearly 41,000 in 2012-13 to around 22,000 in 2015-16.