1,780 Haryana villages in severely groundwater-stressed category

In an initiative aimed at water conservation, the Haryana Water Resources (Conservation, Regulation and Management) Authority (HWRA) has categorised the state into seven different zones based on depth to groundwater table. The categorisation has been done as per June 2020 data by taking villages as the unit of assessment.

Villages having a water table of more than 30 meter have been categorised as severely groundwater stressed.

Officials said it meant microlevel categorisation as compared to categorisation done previously taking block as an assessment unit.

HWRA chairperson Keshni Anand Arora said village-wise categorisation is initially for the purpose of management and micro-level planning of water resources and for making policies and taking remedial actions for water resources.

Officials said groundwater level of all 6,885 villages was collected by the groundwater cell of the irrigation department from 2,200 observation points. As per the HWRA categorisation, 1,780 villages in state were in the red category with the water table at 30.01 metre or more, while 1,041 villages have a water table between 20.01 to 30 metre.

There were 1,807 villages with water table between 10.01 metre to 20 metre and 1,261 having a water table of 5 to 10 metre. The Authority has sought objections and suggestions from the public at large on the proposed categorisation on its official email-id objections2022.hwra@gmail.com.

Officials said the CM wanted to categorise the state into different zones as per the groundwater level in villages to manage groundwater and formulate schemes at the village-level to increase the water level. Officials said villages having less water levels will get priority in all water conservation schemes.