Ground water level shows improvement in four dev blocks

PRAYAGRAJ: There was some good news for Prayagraj on the World Water Day on Tuesday. The underground water level in four of the 23 development blocks of the district has improved and now these are classified under the ‘safe’ category. A 2013 report of the state underground water department had classified Holagarh, Mauaima, Chaka, Bahadurpur and Dhanupur blocks under dark zone as the groundwater level was falling sharply. “The ground water recharge was very less as compared to extraction,” officials said.

“The efforts of the past two decades have shown positive results. A proper action plan was made and implemented in these blocks and this has led to improvement. and gradually locals have started to see the change for themselves. As per a 2017 report, barring Chaka rest of the four blocks are out of the ‘dark zone’ category,” officials said. “Efforts to improve the underground water level in both rural and urban areas has been taken up on large scale. The extraction of water in urban areas is more as compared to rural areas and the recharge is not matching the level of extraction,” said executive engineer of state underground water department, Ravi Kant Singh.

“An awareness campaign is on. From initiating efforts which would enhance the level of underground water by digging more ponds, to facilitating collection and percolating of the rainwater, the administration has paid much attention to creating awareness among the people on the issue,” officials said.

Ex head of Allahabad University’s Geography department, prof AR Siddiqui said: “The unabated extraction of underground water in the city led to a scary imbalance between extraction and recharge. More steps are needed to address the problem before it gets too late.”

He said water bottling plants that have mushroomed in the past one decade also posed a threat in maintaining underground water levels.