Water crisis is likely to aggravate further in next years in the city as no effort is visible on the ground to control receding water table and replenish the underground source of water by trapping rainwater which is the single source of water for the repository beneath the surface. Even as pre-monsoon showers are expected to signal the onset of rainy season, the Ground Water Directorate (GWD) is still to act.
As the Indian Meteorological Department predicts arrival of monsoon in second week of June the GWD’s plan seems to be entangled in red-tapism with no clear sight of time frame to accomplish tasks before monsoon hits Jharkhand. It is however perceived that all works—cleaning of recharge pits, conducting geophysical survey for creating additional recharge pits and construction of pit-- needs to be completed before monsoon. The GWD is still in planning stage for most of the works which needs approval of parent department, Water Resources, before implementing the plans conceived.
“We are planning to send the proposal of cleaning recharge pits to the department and would suggest them to take them on priority basis. Since these are all parts of maintenance so it needs to be done as a non-plan way of work. It is not possible to complete cleaning of recharge pit before monsoon however we can still start the drive in between the monsoon,” said Director of GWD, DK Singh.
The recharge pits in Morhabadi and government buildings, were not cleaned from last two years and the ones at public places slowly turned into a place for dumping leftovers with tall weeds telling the story of neglect and utter disregard of the necessity to keep such pits clean.
Although there is abundance of plans with the directorate to improve underground water situation nonetheless the programme of works charted out would offer respite from water crisis in future and any solution to keep the water table within the reach of the population is out of sight. According to Ranchi Municipal Corporation which is the principal agency for water supply in Ranchi, water table in some areas has gone below 600-ft which led to prohibition of deep bore-well in the city.
Among the plans in pipeline include conducting geophysical survey of overexploited zones and constructing recharging pits based on the fractures in the surface that act as discharging point for underground water. But, the progress has so far been only in terms of identification of overexploited zones and the work of geophysical survey is yet to start.
“Geophysical survey needs to be done before the beginning of monsoon as it becomes difficult once the soil gets wet. We have sent a proposal to the department and we will do as soon as we get approval. If we can do in this monsoon then we will definitely do it later as monsoon is recurring phenomenon,” added the Director of GWD.
The GWD has identified overexploited zones in six blocks-- Ranchi (Kanke), East Singhbhum (Jamshedpur), Ramgarh, Godda (Godda block) and Dhanbad (Dhanbad, Jharia). The GWD will construct recharge pits which has been slightly modified to cover it with barbed wire to prevent dumping of garbage.