Ground Reality of "Water Resources" in the state of Andhra Pradesh ?????

Dear All

The reality of “Groundwater” in the state of Andhra Pradesh (Ground Reality, July 16-31, 2010) is alarming and thus leads for poverty, hunger, migration and suicide. The issue is related two aspects as: a) availability of water in terms of quantity and quality and b) access to water. The issue is complex and is connected with the basic survival of the people as well as the development of the community to nation as the agriculture is the backbone of country’s future. We cannot imagine the life of the mankind with out water. When the water is excess, we are facing the problem with floods and other related issues and when it is less, still we face problems with drought and its consequences. In both the cases, need of the hour is to understand and manage the most precious life saving natural resource “water”. Keeping the vulnerability and challenges of water, the need is to look back for the basics for finding out suitable solutions / strategies and some of them are as follows:

1.Development of water sheds both existing and new one at least one for each village or for specified number of population.
2.Encourage for tank or canal irrigation to the maximum extent rather than bore well irrigation.
3.Suitable crop management based on the availability and optimization of water and other resources.
4.Encourage for rainwater harvesting both individually as well as at community level for all purposes.
5.Improve the groundwater resources by way of injection wells and check dams in general and particularly along the coastal area to check the intrusion of saline water and to manage and control fresh water – saline water interface.
6.Mapping of ground water resources, data base of bore wells, monitoring of water wells and implementation of bore well density should be made mandatory.
7.Encourage PRA with real participation of the stakeholders for better planning to implementation including monitoring and evaluation.
8.Strategies for the storage and management of rain water and thus to check the floods and its ill consequences.

With experience in this area, I feel positive that the above measures certainly improve the water resources and thus for better production with a check on the poverty, hunger, migration and suicide and further for the better living of the people with sustainability and quality of life.