About the Govt. of India's Dugwell recharge programme

Dear Dr. Krishnan,

Thank you for taking up a collaborative research study on the little-known program of the Government of India on decentralized groundwater recharge through irrigation dug wells of millions of farmers. I am sure with the specialized training you received in Geology and Environmental Science from Stanford University, you will be able to play an important role in the efforts of the governmental and non-governmental organizations to optimize groundwater usage in India in a sustainable manner.

In ancient India, groundwater was developed mostly by individual farmers through individual shallow dug wells with water lifted by animal or human power. With the advent of technology, they found it more convenient to exploit and manage groundwater through individual bore (tube) wells with water lifted by pumps using diesel or electricity. As farmers find bore wells more convenient to operate over dug wells, there has been phenomenal increase of bore wells over dug wells with old dug wells abandoned in favor of new bore wells. Thus, according to the 3rd Minor Irrigation Census, there were 18.5 million irrigation wells in India for the reference year 2000-01 with dug wells making only 45%. Abandoned dug wells constitute 85% of the 2.1 million abandoned irrigation wells.

Our studies in Sri Venkateswara University since 1965 in and around Rayalaseema in Andhra Pradesh indicated that there has been gradual deterioration of groundwater quality leading particularly to increased salinity, hardness, alkalinity, fluoride, nitrate and microbes primarily because of people using abandoned drinking and irrigation wells as sanitary sinks for dumping unwanted solid and liquid wastes on a large scale. This has led many people to use water subjected to reverse osmosis or ion exchange to meet their domestic needs; while, several others in both urban and rural areas to agitate for replacing their drinking water sources from traditional groundwater sources to imported river waters. Some groundwater used for irrigation has such high salinity and sodium adsorption ratio (SAR) that there has been substantial reduction in crop yields.

Appreciating the harm done by abandoned wells particularly in deteriorating groundwater quality, most developed countries have made it mandatory to seal them permanently in a scientific manner. In contrast to this, we in India want to use them to recharge groundwater by making dug well owners as partners. Unless a massive program is taken up on wellhead protection and cleaning of rainwater, such a usage can further deteriorate groundwater quality. Because of the preference of farmers to use bore wells rather than dug wells for irrigation, they expect the water let into their dug wells to recharge exclusively their bore wells. Although they are certain that this will not happen, many of them and the associated agencies like to become partners to take advantage of the government subsidies in this regard.

One peculiarity with Indian usage of groundwater for irrigation is that farmers use 18.5 million wells to pump 150 bcm/year of groundwater at an average draft of 8.2 thousand kl/well. In contrast to this, USA uses 200 thousand wells to pump 100 bcm/year of groundwater at an average draft of 500 thousand kl/well. Although social justice demands fragmentation of land into smallholdings, it is just luxury if every landowner strives for own well. With the use of dug wells for groundwater recharge in India, the same inefficiency creeps into the field of groundwater recharge also.

Developed countries protect groundwater quality through wellhead protection and source water protection of the entire catchment of the water sources. Large scale recharge of groundwater through Aquifer Storage Recovery (ASR) and Managed Aquifer Recharge (MAR) are being practiced in many developed countries including USA and Australia. There is need for our governmental and non-governmental organizations to use more efficient methods of groundwater discharge and recharge, besides protecting the groundwater quality.

I am right now in USA on a visit and have used this opportunity to visit the office of the American Ground Water Trust (AGWT), a Non-Profit Education Organisation at Concord, NH and discussed at length with its staff including its Executive Director, Andrew W. Stone. The AGWT has been doing excellent service since 1986 in the fields of Efficient and Effective Ground Water Management through ASR, Asset Management Concepts for Water Well Design, Operation and Rehabilitation, Ground Source Heating & Cooling Technology (Geothermal) and Ground Water Education for Teachers and General Public all over USA. The Trust has plan to extend its activities to countries such as Spain, Mexico and Brazil. I also met Garret Graaskamp, a Ground Water Specialist in Geothermal Heating & Cooling Technology. They are all willing to lend their expertise in whatever way required to tackle the groundwater problems of India.

Regards,

Dr. R. Jagadiswara Rao
Retired Professor of Geology
Sri Venkateswara University
Tirupati, AP 517502
rjagadiswara@gmail.com

Dear Dr Mukesh Joshi,

A line of thought that is emerging recently is that of using canal water to aid groundwater recharge on a distributed level - through recharge basins, unlined canals, pressurized recharge through wells etc.

Note that this manner of thinking is quite different from the current thinking on canal design which is aimed towards reducing recharge, namely "losses" from the system. Therefore, to go towards aiding recharge as opposed to direct gravity flow to fields is a long way (opponents may argue the extra energy cost incurred to lift this recharged water ; supporters may argue the reduced energy cost of lifting groundwater which is anyway the most pre-dominant mode of irrigation, even within canal commands).

But, I have seen few instances of this already occuring, that too in an institutionalized manner. In Mahi river basin command (in central Gujarat), the tail end of the canal in Khambat has some command areas where water is not supplied through regular overland structures, but by underground sumps and pipes. Ultimately many of the command area farmers use this water to recharge their wells.

As you point out, such measures could have positive externalities such as flood mitigation, but given that the canal authority is different from the groundwater dept which is different from the floods control dept; one needs to look at the complexity in terms of inter-department coordination needed to acheive this,

kind regards,

Sunder,
CAREWATER,
INREM Foundation,
Anand, Gujarat