Rajendra Singh, known as the 'Miracle Man', is a social activist who has tapped ancient wisdom to bring water to 550 parched villages in the deserts of Rajasthan, India. By motivating villages to collect rain water, he has helped raise the water table in these areas from a depth of 200 ft to 20 ft. Following is Singh's critique on the Government of India's current water policy. Read on...

The BJP government had placed water policy high on its national agenda. One of the main issues in the Policy will be the regulation of ground water. The water table is getting fast depleted across the country. As a result, all the farmers have to deepen their borewells and every one will get the same amount of water as previously. In the end, no one gains. But the country loses. The massive investment in deepening of the wells goes waste. Moreover, the earth’s ability to absorb and retain rainwater is impaired. Therefore, regulation of groundwater is a top priority of the Policy.

The Rajasthan government had drafted a Groundwater (Regulation) Bill sometime ago, which is presently under consideration of the state government. Although the bill relates to the state, the issues raised in the bill are the same as in other parts of the country. The bill provides for licensing of new borewells. It gives authority to the District Collector to grant permission for sinking of new wells and also to prevent extraction from the existing wells.

The objective of the bill is laudable. We, indeed, have to put an end to the unrestricted exploitation of groundwater. However, if the authority to grant licenses is given to the collector, it will become yet another route to corruption. The collector himself will rarely have the time to go into the merits of each case. The Patwari and Kanungo will then start selling the licenses at a premium. They can also start extorting money from hapless farmers by merely threatening to close down their wells.

Such licensing will also not prevent a further fall in the water table because the existing borewells can be deepened. There is no provision for restriction on continued over-extraction by existing borewells. The basic objective of conserving water resources would, thus, be defeated.

A further problem is that of equity. The borewells that have already been sunk may often belong to the larger landlords. In the past, they alone had the money to do so. The poorer people have lately begun to raise their heads. These poorer latecomers will be denied the opportunity to put up new borewells under the licensing arrangements. The richer early birds will continue to merrily extract groundwater while the poor will be deprived of their share in the earth’s resources in the name of scarcity of ground water. Those who created the scarcity by over-exploitation would continue to over-exploit and those who have been deprived of their share in the past will continue to be deprived. The Bill will ensure that the poor will remain poor forever.

The licensing route is clearly unacceptable. It will open a new gateway to corruption, not prevent the depletion of water table and also condemn the poor latecomers to a state of perpetual poverty. How should we, then, go about preventing excessive extraction of water? For, that is absolutely necessary.

My suggestion is that instead of taking the licensing route, let the government fix a maximum depth of a borewell that can be sunk in an area. It should be mandatory for the government to announce this permissible depth for each district, block or cluster as the case may be. All borewells deeper than this permissible depth should be required to fill up their wells to the permissible depth within a specified time.

This will stop the extraction of groundwater below the permissible depth. Only so much water that is recharged and retained above that depth will be extracted. The groundwater table will stabilize. The increase in number of borewells will not lead to the depletion of water table because the depth of the new borewells will be the same as those already dug previously. Only the water that is freshly recharged within this layer of the earth could be extracted.

Once the government has specified the maximum permissible depth, everyone is free to sink a new borewell upto that depth. No license will be required. The patwari thereafter can not extort money from the farmers. The poor latecomers are also saved. Let us say, a rich farmer has been extracting water 16 hours a day upto the depth of 100 meters for the last 50 years. His poor neighbour can now claim his share in that water by digging a well of the same depth in his adjacent field. The wells of both will now do dry after 8 hours. The ground water will get equitably shared automatically.

The second aspect of regulation is that of increasing the recharge of ground water. Our population is increasing and it is essential that we increase our food grain production. Increased supply of water will be necessary for this purpose. We can do this for some time by digging deeper as we have been foolishly doing for the last few decades. Let us say we were previously extracting water upto 100 meters. Now we extract upto 200 meters will this not add to the supply of water? Not really. Once the water stored between 100 and 200 meters is extracted it will go back to business as usual. Thereafter only such water can be extracted which is recharged. Increasing the depth of extraction only augments the water availability for a short period till the stocks last. It is not a long term solution.

Ultimately, we will have to increase the water that is recharged. We will have to give back to Mother Earth what we take from her. The Bill does not give attention to this aspect. It only regulates extraction. It must also regulate recharge.

This can be done through various measures. One simple way would be to specify the boundary bund that the farmer is required to maintain. This was done effectively by the Tennessee Valley Authority in the USA. The problem there was that the reservoir was getting silted. The government made a law making it mandatory that every farmer construct bunds of a specified height. The result was that the rain water was first arrested in the fields and only then it overflew. In the process, the silt settled down in the fields itself. The life-span of the reservoir was certainly increased.

We can similarly specify the minimum height of a bund. Let it be such that it does not harm the crops. The result will be that more rain water will be retained by the fields and get recharged. The water retained by earth will increase and could be extracted in the ensuing dry season.

It is also possible to make it mandatory for all borewell owners to construct certain water recharging structures like sunken wells, sub-surface barriers, check dams and anicuts. These structures will recharge the groundwater. The good thing will be that the burden of recharging will be imposed on those borewell owners who are exploiting the ground water.

It is necessary to think creatively about this important problem. The Rajasthan Bill or others similarly taking the licensing route are unacceptable. They are but gateways to corruption, will not prevent the depletion of water table and are iniquitous. The national water policy should incorporate clear guidelines on this issue of vital importance. q

Author is the Secretary, Tarun Bharat Sangh, an NGO involved in the develop-ment of water resources in Alwar and the surrounding districts of Rajasthan.

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