It is a well established fact that there exists a
categorical and intricate relationship between preservation of water resources
and food security. Little wonder that the new government in India in 2014,
emphasized on ‘Clean Ganga’ project, which provides substantial non-saline
water for most of the northern India.
In 2012, Dr. Aditi Mukherjee won the Norman Borlaugh
award for field research and application, underlining the population pressures
for food security, the essential requirement of groundwater for sustaining
economical agriculture practice and the groundwater’s under-utilisation in West
Bengal[1]due
to a poor legal framework imposing a ‘licence raj’ on groundwater extraction
(thus affecting agricultural output) and propensity of non-data based studies
coming to adverse conclusions about the State’s water-table levels and its pollution.
She suggested that the licensing be liberalized as local raw data suggested the
threat of lowering of the water-tables was not much. Further, being an alluvial
aquifer, the ground water tables would get rejuvenated by the rainfall over the
area even after extraction and regulation of electricity pricing would also
prevent over-extraction.
However, the northern and eastern India presents a
different picture. Lowering of ground water tables is a real threat, even as
consumption increases exponentially. A cursory reading of the Groundwater
Yearbook 2013-2014 published by the Central Ground Water Board (“Board”),
Ministry of Water resources emphasizes the concern.[2]In
fact, around the same time, the Board entered into a Memorandum of
Understanding with the Indian Institute of Remote Sensing to study and assess impact
of ground water abstraction on land subsidence in Northern India.[3]
This intense scrutiny of groundwater development has
been a time and resource intensive process. Even now, the model water Acts for
balancing the protection and maintenance of the ground water tables vis a vis the agricultural and other
consumption demands, scientifically and sustainably, are yet to take root in
several States. Since the control over groundwater legislations often resides
with the States in our federal set-up, there is a lot of prodding and
persuasion the Centre must do in the face of reluctance at State levels.
Especially, because the Centre must endeavour to think globally and act locally
when it comes to addressing environmental concerns and food security, respectively.
Ultimately, however, it is submitted that the
legislative framework needs to stop dragging its feet and peruse the political
will to focus not just about the development of the ground water tables but
more emphatically about their preservation and sustenance. Further, this must
be culled out from research based on meticulously and scientifically collected data
only, as the comprehensiveness of the multitude of studies can be integrated
conclusively only through such realistic means.
[Comments and peer review is welcome. Please take yours truly's permission before any extract from the above may be reproduced. ©Shruti Goswami.]
[1] Please see the following link
for more details about her work and the nature of the award:
[2] July, 2014. See also, pg. 40 of
theYearbook.
[3] See Press Release. Available at:
http://cgwb.gov.in/documents/MoU-CGWB-IIRS.pdf as of 29.11.2014.
Wrote by Shruti Goswami
