The three-month long ‘Jalasamrakshna’ (water conservation) programme scheduled to be launched by the Andhra Pradesh government on Saturday is being seen as an attempt to improve the fast deteriorating groundwater table.
Andhra Pradesh is banking heavily on groundwater as a resource for agriculture in the drought-prone areas. Using satellite technology, it has planned 20,000 checkdams on first, second and third order water courses to recharge it. With help from the ISRO and the Andhra Pradesh Space Application Centre (APSAC), the Water Resources Department has planned for the construction of harvesting structures to recharge the table at the very point where there is rainfall.
A.P. has invested a lot by installing 1,256 piezometers for the real time monitoring of groundwater. While the State government has fixed 3 m to 8 m as the ideal depth below ground level (BGL) for the water table, it hit an average 14.34 m on Friday.
The recharging of groundwater may be a formidable task if the trend continues, experts say.
