Dhaka Wasa is considering a plan to recharge the underground aquifers with rain water in eight areas across the capital this year to top up the rapidly depleting groundwater table.

As the city's water table is falling by 2.5 to 3.5 metres per year due to excessive extraction of groundwater by deep tube wells, the government agency is also mulling over making water recharging facilities mandatory in the proposed national building code, said Wasa sources.

The State government, specifically the Public Works Department (PWD), has no clue as to what the farmers did with Rs.75 crore of Central funding meant for creating artificial recharge systems (ARS) in their agricultural fields.

The Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) report has found that only 21,214 out of 2.93 lakh farmers utilised the money to construct ARS, which defeated the objective, improving groundwater using rainwater run-off from their own agricultural fields.

Around 30 per cent of the groundwater resource in the state is unfit for both drinking and agriculture, a fact that has sparked concern in the groundwater department authorities since water sources in the state are receding at an alarming rate. Salinity and fluoride contamination are the main reasons for the water becoming unsuitable for irrigation and drinking. Dr K. Venugopal, joint director, groundwater department, said that there are as many as 36 saline mandals and a huge area with high flourine content in water, posing health hazards due to fluorosis.

P.M.Natarajan, Working Group member, Planning Commission, Government of Tamil Nadu, and a noted geologist, has welcomed the proposed Rs.1,560 crore-project to refurbish old tail-end sluices and construct new ones in the Cauvery delta which would facilitate groundwater recharge and arrest sea water intrusion. The proposal was announced by Chief Minister Jayalalithaa in the Assembly on May 7. “It is a good water management approach to improve entire irrigation command including tail end,” he told The Hindu here on Wednesday.

Water woes for Bangaloreans will continue with fresh government data demonstrating that the current level of water supply in India's IT capital is almost four thousand million cubic metre short of the requirement, exposing 22 lakh people to water scarcity every year.

Every drop countsThe shortfall is in the prevailing situation. If City aquifers become barren due to over-exploitation, an additional 24 lakh will have a tough time getting their daily water supply from civic authorities, geologists have forewarned. The warning is based on water data collected by the Karnataka government's mines and geology department from 10 deep wells in Bangalore, between April and December 2011.