How we are over extracting groundwater and what can be done for its sustainable use

1. Dr S.K Jain
Regional Director
Central Ground Water Board
rdnwr-cgwb@nic.in
Website- cgwb.gov.in

2. Facts about Global Ground Water
Usage

3. BACKGROUND…..
 Total Utilisable water resources of the country- 1121
BCM
 Surface Water Resources - 690 BCM
 Ground water Resources - 431 BCM ( 38.44%) .
 Groundwater Contribution
 61% - Irrigation
 85% - Rural drinking water supply
 45% (approx) - Urban water supply.
 Groundwater development
 Overall stage of ground water development -61%
 Out of 5845 assessment units, 803 units are overexploited in the
country.
 Ground Water levels are also declining from less than a meter to
4 meter annually in various parts.

4. Background…
 XII Plan document envisaged Paradigm shift from
“Ground Water Development” to “Ground Water
Management”.
 A comprehensive scheme of Ground Water
Management and Regulation approved by the
Govt of India for XIIth Plan and to be rolled to
XIII Plan

5. Scheme Objectives
 Aquifer mapping for aquifer disposition in 3- Dimension along
with their characterization on 1:50,000 scale
 Formulation of Aquifer Management Plan for facilitating
sustainable management of ground water resources at regional
and local level through participatory management approach
 Quantify water availability and water quality
 Capacity building of functionaries of PRIs, local community
and grass root workers.
 Regulate and control ground water development.

6. Outcome envisaged
 Improve accuracy of information by 25 times in terms of scale, hydro-
geological settings and dimensions.
 Accurate data of Over-exploited, Critical, Semi-critical units
 Long term trend of ground water regime for creation of time series data
base and ground water resource estimation.
 Management of aquifers at micro level through participatory approach.
 Capacity building in all aspects of ground water development and
management.
 Up-gradation of existing infrastructure in line with international
benchmarking
 Enable achieving of drinking water security, improved irrigation facility
and sustainability in ground water resources development.

7. Aquifer Mapping -
Implementation Milestones
 Prioritization of work for implementing Aquifer Mapping (All Overexploited and quality
affected areas )
 Coordination with Central agencies for participation in NAQUIM
 Coordination with States in implementation of NAQUIM-SGWCC constituted
 Implementation Plan of NAQUIM – Data Gaps identified and data generation initiated

8. COMPARISON OF
GROUND WATER RESOURCES
DEVELOPMENT
No. of Blocks over-exploited
2004 55
2011 71

10. Aquifer Management Plan
 Proof of Concept (PoC) formulated for
 Data Integration
 Preparation of Aquifer Maps
 Aquifer Response Modeling
 Conceptualization of Aquifer Management Plan taken up based on
success stories recognized at
 National level
 International level

14. Hydrogeological Model

15. Participatory Ground Water
Management
 Community empowerment for sustainable and equitable management
 Through Capacity building to manage and monitor the ground water
resources
 Participatory program consist of:
 Creation of National, State and District level Facilitation Centers.
 Organizing multilevel outreach and capacity building programs for
intensive participation of community

16.  Participatory ground water management to make a
significant step in ground water management at grass root
level to enable the community and stake holders to monitor
and manage the ground water as common pool resources
themselves.
 Coordinated efforts for involving government departments,
research institutes, PRIs, civil society organizations and the
stakeholders at the village level

17. Data dissemination
CGWB is Operationalizing eGEMS on web platform which will enable
other stake holders across the country to use the centralised facility for
data dissemination.
 Strengthening of ground water monitoring network by integrating
observation wells of CGWB, State deptt,Industries and other water users
 Based on aquifer wise ground water management plan, CGWB intends
to Develop interactive web based citizen interface (Aquifer Information
and Management System)(AIMS)
Real time ground water monitoring will be implemented for online
regulation mechanism.

20. Let us Join hands
for this
Endeavour