Though the State government is spending crores of rupees every year for drilling new borewells to ensure supply of drinking water to people in drought-prone areas such as Chitradurga, Kolar, Chamarajanagar and Chickballapur, scientific steps have not been taken to recharge the borewells. Keeping this in view, the Geo Karnataka Rain Water Board has taken initiatives to create awareness among the people on the importance of recharging borewells to protect water sources.
Devaraj Reddy, founder of the board, told The Hindu that the board had recharged more than 20,000 borewells, set up 5,500 rooftop rainwater harvesting systems, and constructed 1,000 farm ponds and 4,000 percolation tanks since 2003-04. Farmers who had incurred losses owing to defunct borewells in fields got a new lease of life after recharging borewells.
Nijalingappa, a teacher from Chitradurga, had purchased four acres for growing pomegranate and had drilled a 530-ft deep borewell on his farm. Though he used to get 1.5 inches of water initially, it started decreasing gradually and the borewell dried up in five years.
Mr. Reddy visited the farm and studied the nature of soil. He told Mr. Nijalingappa that the borewell could be recharged by utilising available resources at a low cost. A 10 x 10 x 10 pit was dug around the borewell and it was filled with big boulders, small stones and sand to ensure percolation of water. After that, a parapet wall was constructed around the borewell. As per the survey conducted initially, all the rainwater in the catchment areas is being diverted towards the pit.
After successfully maintaining the recharge pit, Mr. Nijalingappa is getting more than two inches of water in his borewell. Now, he has purchased another 14 acres of land and drilled four new borewells with recharge systems there, he added.
In some places, even dried borewells had become functional and salinity and fluoride content of water in them had decreased considerably, Mr. Reddy said.
