Expert's concern over ground water depletion

James Edwin Warangal: As the world is gearing up for observing 'World Water Day' on March 22, the ground water levels in about 300 villages in the district have fallen to alarming levels. The above number is as per the statistics available with Central Water Board. If immediate steps are not taken the number may rise exponentially, warns experts working in the field of water conservation. In Warangal district a decade ago about ten percent of bore-wells used to fail and now the percentage has raised to 30 per cent due to the fast depleting ground water levels. In terms of agricultural bore-wells the percentage of failed wells is about 50, explained Singareddy Shoury Reddy who has been working in the field of water conservation for the past several years. About five years ago ground water table stood at 150 feet and the same has now fallen to 250 feet and that is a drastic fall, he noted. Shoury Reddy, the executive director of Bala Vikasa Social Service Society based at Kazipet suggests that instead of going for massive irrigation projects, the government should consider restoring the existing water bodies. There are about 2000 small, medium and large water tanks in the district and about half of them lost their designed capacity for storing the water. It happened due to land encroachments and poor management by the government agencies, he added. Succeeding where the government failed the Bala Vikasa has mobilised farmers in hundreds of villages and launched 'Jala Vikasa Padakam' in the year 2000 and renovated more than 500 small scale irrigation tanks, he claimed. Bala Vikasa now planning to renovate 50 tanks in various districts of Andhra Pradesh involving the farmers and intends to excavate about one lakh tractor loads (2, 25,000 cubic meters) of silt with partnership of locals.