News and Articles

India's water availability in the future is predicted to be bleak if proper steps are not undertaken to deal with the management of the available water resources in the country. The report titled 'Watershed development in India

“Every inch of our planning is directed towards human beings. At least leave environmental flows alone!”, said the professor, revealing a side to himself that I had not dreamt existed.

Vidarbha region in Maharashtra has continued to be in the news over the years because of its severe agrarian crisis with reports of severe droughts, loss of crops and increasing farmer suicides. Relief packages have done very little to solve these problems.

Please provide us some background on the hydrogeology of Maharashtra and its special features, which make it stand out as compared to the other parts of the country.

Amulya Soren couldn’t get stable yields in the kharif (monsoon) paddy in his farm. A member of the Santhal tribe, he was the beneficiary of a surplus land redistribution programme in Hirbandh block of Bankura, West Bengal. The undulating terrain in which his farm lies receives sufficient rainfall of about 1000 mm a year, yet sufficient irrigation was an issue.

Chhatrapati Shivaji was the brave warrior king whose name is still synonymous with Maharashtra. A military genius par excellence, he launched guerrilla warfare (ambushes, surprise raids, and hit & run tactics) against the numerically superior but inert, traditional Mughal forces.

Whenever Nachatar Singh’s wife and children fall sick, he blames it on the groundwater they pull out everyday using a hand pump in his courtyard at Veere Wala Kalan village of Faridkot district. Singh swears that the problem started only recently. “The same tap used to fetch such good quality water thanks to seepage from the Gang canal which runs around 1 km from our place.

A wetland is defined as land area that is saturated with water, either permanently or seasonally, and maintains an ecosystem of its own.The factor that distinguishes wetlands from other land forms or water bodies is the vegetation of aquatic plants which grow in its highly water saturated soil [1].

River basins in India have been found to be highly vulnerable to contamination. Recent evidence shows that a large number of water sources including rivers, lakes and surface water in India are polluted due to untreated sewage, agricultural runoff and most importantly, due to unregulated industries.

Climate change has been predicted to create increasing risks for the agricultural sector thus inversely affecting agricultural production and farm incomes in India. These risks have already manifested in the form of increasing intensity and extent of droughts, floods, temperature rise and fall, and other calamities in the country.