From Ajay Agrawal, Anjali, Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh

Posted 9 December 2010

I work with Anjali, an NGO based in Bilaspur, Chattisgarh. One of ANJALI’s mandates is to encourage people to adopt water recharging methods on an everyday basis to address water problems in the area. These include over-exploitation of groundwater and pollution. Owing to this, the region faces a recurrent water shortage.

Bilaspur and its surrounding villages are facing groundwater depletion. Water levels have gone down considerably and the only way to access the groundwater is by deepening the existing borewells, an expensive proposition. The over-exploitation of groundwater and surface water sources is one of the main reasons for this situation. Other reasons include a rise in the local population and increased industrial activities that have also led to increased demand for water in the area.

I request community members to please share the following to help us address the situation:

• Are there any examples and studies from the field, which show the economic impact of improved groundwater and surface water on communities/households?
• What are the economic incentives that we can use to encourage communities/households to improve their underground and surface water source resources? 

If economic incentives with existing capital arrangements are available for specific methods to augment water availability, then we can motivate the people at the panchayat level to adopt such techniques.  We are already working in rural areas to harvest rainwater.  However, by adopting some alternate measures of water conservation, the communities would be better benefitted.

Please see below attachment for the responses