Conservation of Ground water

January 19: The Haryana Government is contemplating to introduce an Act on the conservation of ground water with a view to check the depleting level of underground water in the State. This Act would help in improving the level of ground water.
While giving this information today a spokesman of the Agriculture department said that as per the Act the farmers would not be able to sow paddy before the notified date of May 10 every year which would ultimately result in controlling the depletion of underground water. The department had also implemented a Ground Water Recharge Scheme to conserve water and for artificial recharge of ground water. So far 290 such structures had been constructed under the scheme.
He said that the department had also launched an awareness campaign to educate the farmers to prevent the sowing of Sathi Crop which was more water consuming and one of the prime reasons of depleting ground water. Under this campaign the famers were motivated to use sprinkle and drip irrigation and also irrigation through Underground Pipe Line system. The department had also made a provision to give subsidy to the farmers using these techniques which were helpful for saving water.
The spokesman said that now it had been made mandatory to construct water conservation structure on the roof tops of government buildings. The same had also been compulsory for the houses having an area of 100 sq.mtr. or more in the HUDA sectors or falling under the jurisdiction of Municipalities. Similarly, the replacement of old flush tanks having capacity of 10 to 15 liters with new flush tanks of 8 liters capacity had also been made compulsory in the Government Buildings.
He said that after June 1974, in 15 districts comprising of Ambala, Bhiwani, Faridabad, Fatehabad, Gurgaon, Kurukshetra, Kaithal, Karnal, Mahendergarh, Mewat, Panipat, Panchkula, Rewari, Sonipat and Yamunanagar the ground water level had recorded a downfall of -5.75 mtr. on an average of -0.17 miter per year. Bhiwani had recorded a lowest downfall of -0.74mtr. as compared to highest downfall of -24.97mtr. in Mahendergarh district.