As the extended lockdown to curb the coronavirus outbreak has shut educational institutions, malls, restaurants, hotels, industries and forcing people to stay at home it has yielded unexpected bonus— cleaner air and water. Also it has helped in putting a brake on depleting groundwater and conserving water at dams.
As most of business establishments, malls, industries, hotels and restaurants are closed the daily consumption of water by these units has come down. Water Board Executive Engineer, KK Verma said, “We can’t say on how much water is saved from closing of business establishments, malls, industries, hotels and restaurants due to lockdown as most of these units have own boring to meet water requirement but all these steps has led to recharging ground water as there is severe drop in use of ground water.”
The Capital has gained disrepute for the plummeting groundwater level and water shortage in its dams during summers. However, this year the situation is not as such.
Verma claimed that good ground water table can be gauged from the fact that even in month of May the department has not received complaint of boring failure.
The Water Board executive engineer also said that other positive aspect of lockdown is that the three dams Rukka, Gonda (Kanke) and Hatia have sufficient water.
Last year, Ranchi had to face severe water crisis due to fall of underground water table. Also, as ponds and hand pumps dried people were forced to depend on water supplied by tanks provided by the Ranchi Municipal Corporation (RMC).
Verma said, “These dams have storage of nearly 50 million gallon of water which is sufficient than previous years records.”
Echoing the views of Verma environmentalist Nitish Priyadarshi said, “One of the positive affect of lockdown is that even in May, summer in Capital is pleasant. This is mainly due to closure of industrial units and factories. Also there is less pollution as all transportation activities is closed.”
Priyadarshi further said that he too has not heard about boring failure which suggests that ground water table is good. He said, “The one reason behind this is ground water used has been checked due to closure of business establishments, malls, industries, hotels and restaurants.” In past few years, shrinking natural water bodies have lowered groundwater level and as a result people suffer during summer.
Ranchi city that used to have more than 100 ponds and smaller water bodies in the 1970s and only 42 ponds remain, said Ranchi Municipal Corporation officials.