Groundwater

A National Convention on Union Budget 2015-16 by the Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability, New Delhi held on 8th and 9th January 2015 brought together around 200 Civil Society Organisations from more than 20 States to discuss the policy asks for water and sanitation sector.

Call for papers

The workshop is an opportunity for academics, students, practitioners and activists to come together, exchange ideas, and discuss emerging issues relating to implications of climate change on groundwater in India and the legal responses. The workshop will combine sessions with invited speakers and presentations and discussions of research papers.

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Sustainable management of groundwater continues to be ignored in India although its hydrogeological and socieconomic aspects continue to be studied extensively. Despite recognition of its importance at the policy level, no clear plan of action exists for groundwater management in India. 

"The Kelo river has never been like this but in the last two decades, the economic growth in the region has spoiled the purity of the river", says eminent journalist  Shiv Rajpoot from Raigarh, who is also known as "Kelo man". He has twice traveled by foot, the 90 km stretch of the Kelo from its origin to its end.

The objectives of his two visits were to study and document:

India has almost 17% of the world's population and 4% of the global water resources – a situation that threatens to push it towards a water crisis in the coming years. To add to this, are other reasons such as:

Despite its shrinking greens, Delhi has significant tree diversity. Pradip Krishen, a naturalist, author and filmmaker, identifies around 250 tree species in the concrete jungle, in his book titled ‘Trees of Delhi’ published in 2007. But these trees do not have the breathing room they need as the Public Works Department's (PWD) pavement tiling projects enclose trees completely in concrete.

Big sandstone hills cover the landscape dotted by little grass, while the land below is covered with Israeli babool (akesia tortlis), an invasive species which does not let any other vegetation grow. Amidst this, Baadi village with its lush green fields full of cabbage, pepper and groundnut seems out of place.

"Just having the people of Delhi look at their water meters everyday will enable the city to deal with its current water supply", said K.P Singh.

He should know.

Recent news has been flooded with reports of the severe drought situation in the Marathwada and Vidarbha regions of Maharashtra. Even more shocking are the reports of large-scale suicides by farmers due to crop losses.