DADI INSTITUTE OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY,

NH-5, ANAKAPALLE – 531 002

“Recharge Ground Water”

– Importance and
Academic Inclusion
A Student’s Assertion to save Mother Earth
Registration No: 1002549
10/29/2012

Abstract
This manuscript underscores the dire need to recharge ground water, some relevant statistics,

citations, robust pillars that could be commissioned by the Government to save Mother Earth

from a Ground Water Management Standpoint. The manuscript suggests possible inclusion at

all levels encompassing students from schools and colleges and a decent role dissemination

structure. The presented facts and ideas are not novel in nature and urges common practice of

commonsense and more focus from public servants, down to the Mandal and Panchayat level.
 “Recharge Ground Water” – Importance and Academic Inclusion

Introduction

The National Water Policy (1987) confirms that water is a prime natural resource, primary human need,
and precious national asset. It gives dedicated attention to drinking water for all life forms over its other
uses. The policy calls for monitoring on the exploitation of groundwater through policies and an
integrated and coordinated improvement of surface- and ground-water. The central government has
identified policies for meeting drinking water needs and micro-watershed management and performed
pilot projects in different regions in the Indian state. Even so, India is addressing a freshwater crisis.

The vast majority of the Earth's water resources are salt water, with only 2.5% being fresh water.
Approximately 70% of the fresh water available on the planet is frozen in the icecaps of Antarctica and
Greenland leaving the remaining 30% (equal to only 0.7% of total water resources worldwide) available
for consumption. From this remaining 0.7%, roughly 87% is allocated to agricultural purposes (IPCC
2007). These statistics are particularly illustrative of the drastic problem of water scarcity facing the
world. Water scarcity is defined as per capita supplies less than 1700 m3/year (IPCC 2007).

The 21st century has around 1.1 billion people globally who are denied access to improved water supply
sources whereas 2.4 billion people do not have access to any type of improved sanitation facility. About
2 million people die annually due to diarrheal diseases, many of them are children less than 5 years of
age. The most impacted are the populations in developing countries, living in extreme conditions of
poverty, normally village inhabitants. Among the primary problems which are responsible for this
position are: inadequate priority application to the sector, inadequacy of financial resources, inadequacy
of sustainability of water resources and sanitation services, poor hygiene attitudes, and inadequate
sanitation in public locales including hospitals, health centres and primary education places. Providing
access to sufficient quantum of safe water, the provision of structures for a sanitary disposal of excreta,
and introducing robust hygiene behaviours are of primary importance to reduce the burden of disease
advanced by these risk factors.

Alarming state of depleting ground water levels

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On the morning of October 9, 2012, a main headline read, “We have advised farmers to sow mustard,
tobacco and oil seeds instead of paddy,” K. Sangaiah, Deputy Director of Agriculture Department.
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The situation in the state of Andhra Pradesh reflects the macro picture of the alteration in the
agriculture cropping pattern of India. Of the 124 billion population in the country, more than 69%
depend on agriculture with over 141 million hectares area under cultivation. In the past 15 years,
farmers have moved towards cash crops like pepper, oilseeds, sugarcane tobacco and mustard, while
turning away from gram-pulses, coarse grains and paddy. Hence, output of sugarcane has hiked by 32%,
pepper by 55%, oil seeds 28%, mustard by 20% in comparison to output in mid-00s but, that of coarse
grain, gram-pulses and other crops has come down by 23%-51%. Among pulses, each state’s average
production of red-gram alone dropped to 3.29 lakh tonne in 2011-12 from 5.91 lakh tonne in 2009-10.

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 “Recharge Ground Water” – Importance and Academic Inclusion

The changes has been in lieu of irrigation facilities and availability of ground water. Nearly 76% of
agriculture land in India is irrigated through rainwater, 5% through canals and remaining is bore well-
fed. The drought-prone regions in India depend on less water requiring crops like groundnut and pulses.

This manuscript argues that, instead of moving from basic crops (considered more water demanding)
towards cash crops will further deteriorate the food cycle instead of balancing the same. The
government instead of promoting people to adopt cash crops need to find routes and means to
replenish depleting ground water. This is possible without any additional inflow of either technology or
other innovations.

Common Sense that is not a Common Practice - recharge ground water

In this section of the manuscript the authors detail two methods that are simple and implementable.

1. CONSTRUCTION OF SOAK PITS

Every household essentially uses 100 liters of water for bathing, kitchen and domestic use. This used
water which is not chemically polluted is routed into the Oceans through the vast drainage systems in
the world. No one really cares the quantum of water that is actually sunk in the ground. Everyone wants
their drainage systems to perform.

The government keeps on reiterating that Soak-Pits need to be built in the vicinity of the house, but
really does nothing to implement the same. As a keeper of the safe interests of the community, the
government needs to act on this and ensure Soak Pits are built with immediate effect and household
discharge is routed into the ground directly instead of the drainage system.

The Soak pit is actually a tank for recharging ground water (or underground water) and improving
ground water level using waste water that cannot be used and it can be built with most of the available
household and some basic hardware. Many cities in India and all around the world too, face water
scarcity. All Indian residents need to understand that, if this discharge of household water is not routed
into the ground, one morning it will be pertinent that, water tanks will be empty, the taps yield only
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warm air, you run to your community center or a friend’s house for a glass of water to quench your
biting thirst in the heat of the summer only to understand that the water supply has been halted for a
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few days because of unavailability of water in the city, then what will you do?

The government keeps reiterating that new borewells are prohibited. While this is enforced with an iron
hand, the government does little to restore the ground water. There is increased emphasis on retaining
existing ground water levels and less emphasis on restoration of ground water. This paper seeks an
answer to the basic logic of the government in that; should the system be promoting restoration of
ground water or restrain people from using water which is a natural resource.

There are increased instances of government allocating water meant for public consumption to
multinational companies in exchange for employment. This research argues that, “is supplying water
essential to the common man or is it the employment opportunity for the young”. This research also

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 “Recharge Ground Water” – Importance and Academic Inclusion

questions when crores of rupees are being spent on generating employment, not even a rupee is
invested into increasing ground water levels.

Policy initiatives by the government to ensure restoration of ground water

A possible and effective solution can be

Option A – For new houses being built

Government needs to institute measures to build mandatory Soak-Pits in every house. The size
and quantum would be related to the area and residents occupied within. There needs to be a
civic body which will oversee the building of the same at the time of plan approval itself.

Option B – For existing houses

To make the process of building Soak-Pits in every house without any financial burden, the
government can

a. Interlock the supply of electricity and water supply to the institution and operationalization
of the soakpit.
b. Once this first phase is completed, the quantum of building material and the blue print of
number of soakpits with dimensions would be available for analysis.
c. Now to mobilize faster and efficient manpower and material, the government needs to
commission a program under the “food for work” scheme already in vogue.
d. The 18% unemployed and village labor who are agri dependent and without food, need to
be mobilized to the building of soak-pits in every house.
e. The required material and machinery can be initially funded by the government and once
the soak-pits are commissioned, the relative cost of building can be recovered in easy and
small additions to the electricity bill and/or water bill on a monthy basis
f. This method would be foolproof and results would be sooner than later.
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The mandatory places for installation and commissioning of soak pits are

a. Municipal tap outlets (primary water discharge into drains leading into the ocean)
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b. Hand-pumps and unmanned water outlets

Option C

The government needs to keep a stronghold on corporations especially chemical and cement plants that
operate near water resources and especially near the rivers. As of date the rules of safe disposal are
compromised and little or no inspection rules are in vogue to check the unabated abuse of natural
resources especially water.

Government needs to ensure that water released from factories are first filtered off the chemical and
treated for harmful solvents before being discharged into the ground. This research argues that, by no
means water intensive companies be given lands near water bodies, static or flowing. For chemical

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 “Recharge Ground Water” – Importance and Academic Inclusion

plants especially the only way is to recycle water and reuse the same, otherwise treat the water and
sunk into the ground.

Possible road-map for creating awareness about the intensity of the problem.

1. The government needs to roll-out a soft publicity campaign and create awareness with key facts
and figures respective to the locale and geographic territory.
2. Women ambassadors to be chosen who can spearhead the campaign in lieu of the fact that,
women use most of the water in a given household.
3. Once a soak-pit is built, every 18 months refurbishing the pit would be the responsibility of the
local municipality and this needs to be informed upfront.

Governance Issues

1. The project would take a load of crores of rupees and multiple levels of reporting staff. A
commission involving people from all segments needs to be set-up to facilitate project
execution.
2. The Commercial and Government Media need to support the effort relentlessly.
3. The GeNext or the students from Secondary Schools to graduate students need to be placed in
the forefront as they would be the ones to reap the benefits of the program.

Affects of the present process.

An Indian scientist published in a renowned newspaper that, because of the excessive discharge of
waste water into the ocean, the forming of a thin layer on the surface is occurring and this is inhibiting
the natural process of evaporation. This in turn is breaking the cycle of monsoons and harming the food
chain. The adoption of Soak-Pits will be very beneficial from a climate regular also in terms that,
unwanted discharge into the oceans is stopped and the process of monsoon formation is kept at normal
without human induced disasters.

2. TREE PLANTATION
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Climate change impasse uncertainty to the supply and management of water resources. The
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in the widely published estimate asserted that, the
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o
global mean surface temperature has risen over the threshold of 0.6 ± 0.2 C since 1861, and
o
disturbingly predicts an increase of 2 to 4 C over the next 100 years. Temperature increases also affect
the hydrologic cycle by a straightforward increase in the evaporation of available surface water and
vegetation transpiration. Logically, as a consequence, these changes can influence precipitation
quantum, timings and intensity ratios, and indirectly affects the flux and storage of water on the surface
and subsurface reservoirs (i.e., lakes, soil moisture, ground-water reserves). In addition, there may be
other associated unwanted and harmful affects, such as sea water intrusion, water quality deterioration,
potable water shortage, etc.

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 “Recharge Ground Water” – Importance and Academic Inclusion

While climate change impacts surface water resources directly through amendments in the major long-
term climate variables namely; air temperature and precipitation, the relationship amongst the changing
climate factors and groundwater is not only more complicated but also poorly understood. The greater
variability in rainfall could mean more frequent and prolonged tenures of high or low groundwater
levels, and saline intrusion in coastal aquifers in lieu of a rise in sea level coupled with resource
reduction. Groundwater resources are associated to climate change through the direct interaction with
surface water reservoirs, such as lakes and rivers, and indirectly through the recharge procedures. The
direct effect of climate change on groundwater resources rests upon the change in the quantum and
distribution of groundwater recharge.

In light of the aforesaid published data, this research cites the universally accepted saying

“SAVE TREES” & “TREES SAVE YOU”

The second argument this manuscript places for debate is “Trees can improve ground water levels to a
large extent”. Inspite of this common knowledge and understanding the Government’s world across do
little to realize the objective and yet sit in air conditioned halls to discuss climate and tree protection
programs. More than 85% of discussion points never see the light of the day. This is exactly what this
research asserts especially the segment of ground-water conservation activities.

There is no mandate either in spirit or by the Indian legislative procedures that every person should
plant a tree. As of date, the word SHOULD is read as COULD. This emphasizes the slip referencing
important aspects being ignored. The research questions, “Is it not the duty of every citizen to upkeep
the environment by planting trees, which render life to all living things on earth?

In this regard, the research asserts that, the current population for conformity sake be divided into two
segments, employed and the ones who are studying. The research statistically ignores the above 65 yrs
age group and the below 10 yrs age group for feasibility of operationalization of a working plan.

The plan is to engage all strata of the education segment and make
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1. Plantation and maintenance of trees a component of formal education

2. Youth to form the spearhead of this drive and ensure that proper lands and suitable tree types
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are identified depending on the land availability including minerals available thereof

3. This set of youth need to roll-up their sleeves and identify the pockets where saplings could be
sourced from.

4. As a contribution to a better tomorrow, the government to form exclusive teams to disseminate

information and saplings by the plant nursery outlets that operate.

5. Tree plantation and protection to be appended as apart of academic pedagogy with quantifiable
targets at the District and Mandal levels.

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 “Recharge Ground Water” – Importance and Academic Inclusion

6. The Education officer to facilitate the physical activity by earmarking one day in a month for
planation and/or upkeep of the planted tress within the vicinity of the institution.

7. The government needs to either subsidize or render free transport to the schools/colleges which
participate in the tree plantation/upkeep activities.

8. Physical activity (especially related to tree plantation) certificates to be pinned to the academic
certificates of every education participant either at school or college.

As the assertion to include tree plantation and associated rearing activities at the school and college
level itself, it would be more prudent on behalf of the Government to allocate a decent percentage of
academic marks to this practical activity.

This aspect has been implemented by Dr. Wangari Maathai, Nobel Prize winner from Kenya who
founded the ‘Green Belt Movement’. Based on this the United Nations commissioned the “Billion Tree
Campaign”, and hence this manuscript asserts that, we need to act fast and mitigate the colossal
damage mankind is headed for if not otherwise.

Conclusion

Unfortunately, contaminated groundwater is very cumbersome and expensive to clean up. Solutions can
be arrived at after groundwater has been contaminated but this isn't always simple. The best thing to do
is adopt pollution prevention and conservation habits in order to protect important groundwater
supplies from being polluted or depleted in the first place.

The painful fact with which we all live is that, no single action whether community oriented, laws,
traditional water harvesting procedures, or reliance on market determinants will in itself alleviate the
crisis in India. The effective response to the freshwater crisis is to amalgamate conservation and
development activities – from water pumping to water management – at the local level; making
communities educated and involving them completely is therefore critical for success. All this will
ultimately pave the way for adding conservation of the environment with the basic needs of people.
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In India, the Water (Prevention and Control) Act was tabled by the Parliament in 1974, and by 1990 all
the Indian states adopted the act. In 1986, the Environment Protection Act was also commissioned by
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the Parliament. Under both these legislations, the states and the central government developed
environmental norms for waste water discharge for different types of sources. It needs to be seen if the
government is really thirsty to solve the water problem or will burn not only its fingers but the common
man’s also.

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