Since the advent of the hard rock drilling rigs in the 1960s in India, borewell drilling and groundwater usage has seen an explosion in India. It is estimated that above 60% of India’s total water usage comes from groundwater alone. Even in urban India, about 50% of urban use may come from groundwater.
As the water table falls in many places however, getting a bore-well dug has become expensive business. In the environs of the city of Bengaluru, borewells can go to a depth of 1,250 ft. It takes a lot of money to install pumps and cables able to draw water from these depths, not to mention the energy required.
When the risk is taken and a new borewell dug the next crucial decision is whether it is worthwhile to install a pump or not. If the borewell is old and stops yielding there is uncertainty whether the groundwater itself has run out or the pump has failed. When the pump is being taken out sometimes the cable tends to snag and the lifting operations get stuck. All these require a clear identification of the problem so that the correct decision can be taken for the appropriate solution.
Enter camera inspection and the informal sector. Meet Murthy. The young man comes from a small village near the town of Bangarpet in Kolar District. He provides camera inspection services for borewells and is quite popular in the area. He charges anywhere from Rs. 1,000 to Rs. 1,500 depending on the distance he has to travel and the complexity of the work.
He has rigged up a small webcam with LED lights powered by a battery. This is waterproof and with the appropriate cable can be lowered even upto 1,200 ft. A small laptop video records from the web camera as it travels down. Fissures from where water enters is noted as is the quantity of water coming in. If cables are snagged or the borewell casing has bent this too can be identified. The webcam can travel all the way down to the last point of the borehole and provide vital video images.
With an experience of over 3 years and camera inspections of over 1,500 borewells, Murthy is a legitimate groundwater expert.
As I meet him in the foothills of a rocky escarpment in Kolar district a bunch of curious farmers and school children were hanging around Murthy. He had just finished camera inspection of a new borewell which has been drilled to 1,000 ft. He is explaining to the farmer that there is enough yield and he can go ahead and invest Rs. 150,000 needed for the entire pumping requirement. On other occasions he has helped farmers save money by telling them there is no need for a motor installation as there is very little water in the borewell.
While the open well had made groundwater visible in the days of yore, the borewell turned it into an invisible resource. Now people like Murthy and technology is making groundwater visible once.
In another place at another time, after a good rain when a lake nearby filled up, Murthy’s camera showed a fissure at about 120 ft. pouring water into the borewell. The benefits of tank maintenance and recharge became clear to farmers.
With about 30 million borewells an army of young people like Murthy are providing services and knowledge to farmers to help save money and understand groundwater better. If these barefoot service providers are better armed with hydro-geological knowledge they will serve the cause of India’s sustainable groundwater management better.
It is at the grassroots that water literacy has to be understood and spread. We need a million Murthys in India, entrepreneurs making a livelihood and providing a service using the latest technology. Understanding this and facilitating it would be water wisdom.
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