Concerns related to Water Resources :

Background :

The state has a semi arid upstream topography with seven major river basins which form the life line of the state. Rainfall is the major source of water in Madhya Pradesh. Maximum rainfall occurs in the monsoon period from June to September which keeps varying across the state. Though the state receives medium to high levels of rains, the ground storage capacity is low due to physiograhic reasons like poor quality soils of low depth and high slopes, black soils of medium to deep soil depth with flat slopes and the underlying impervious hard rock layer. The sources of irrigation are classified in the category of major, medium and minor depending on the extent of the area likely to be irrigated from the storage capacity created or from the run off of available rivers.

Precipitation : However, high annual evapotranspiration rate (Green Water Flow) in the region which is on an average 2100 mm and is in most cases double the total annual precipitation results in a substantial proportion of the harvested water being lost to evaporation. The actual irrigation is far less than the designed irrigation potential of the state; this low utilization is primarily due to the terrain situation because of which it cannot make use of its share of water resources through canal irrigation from rivers without large investments.

Groundwater : Groundwater constitutes a major and widely used resource in MP. However, it is not uniformly distributed due to the varied hydrogeology of the state. Western region of the State is largely occupied by the Deccan Trap lava flows of 10-20 m thickness, separable into vesicular and massive units. The vesicular units, at various depths below ground, are moderately productive with wells capable of yielding 250 – 750 cu.m/ day for drawdown of 3-6 metres. The northern and eastern parts are covered by Archean crystalline rocks, Pre-cambrian sedimentary rocks and Gondawna groups of rocks. In these areas groundwater occurs in upper weathered mantle and fractured zones underlying them. Gondawana formations are granular where tubewells are capable of yielding 100-500 cu.m/day for drawdown of 6 to 10 m. Thick alluvial deposits along the Chambal in the northern and Narmada in the southern parts form excellent aquifers but constitutes only 9% of the area. About half of the available ground water is used for irrigation mainly from privately owned dug wells or shallow tube wells. District-wise groundwater balance data indicate high levels of ground water abstraction in the western and north-western districts compared to the eastern and south-eastern districts where groundwater potential developed is only a tenth of the utilisable reserves. 

Water supply in the state could be differentiated as urban and rural water supply. In the last 25 to 30 years the villages have shifted to ground water extraction through wells and hand pumps for their domestic purposes. Compared to the 30% urban water supply met out with groundwater, a massive 70% of the rural water supply is dependent on the same source.

Policies and Programmes :

Narmada, the lifeline of Madhya Pradesh is the fifth largest river in India. Its potential for irrigation and hydro-electricity has been captured through a series of dams which have been either constructed or are under construction. The Government’s Plan is to build 30 large, 135 medium and 3000 small dams to harness the waters of the Narmada and its tributaries. The MP Water Sector Restructuring Project (WSRP) funded by the World Bank aims to improve the productivity of water and integrate 654 schemes (completed prior to 1986) spread over 30 districts of 5 river basin (Betwa, Chambal, Sindh, Ken and Tons). There are proposals for Interstate River linking projects (Ken-Betwa) and the Parvati Kalsindh-Chambal links which are under consideration with other states. The MPWSRP is improving the overall management of water resources as well as irrigation service delivery, modernising about 650 minor, medium and major irrigations schemes covering an area of about 620,000 ha in the five focus basins.

Concerns of Water Sector :

1. Currently, about 94% of the available water (81.5 lakh ha m), is used for irrigation and the rest is for industrial and domestic use. Of the total irrigation water available to the state, 66.5% of it is groundwater. In fact, the entire demand for rural drinking water is met through ground water extraction and due to more and more demand of water for agriculture purposes the ground water identified for drinking purposes are also drying up threatening the groundwater dependent rural water supply.

2. The State Water Policy 2007 also mentions that priority should be given to exploration of ground water resources for drinking water purposes.The indiscriminate exploitation of groundwater not only results in decline of groundwater levels but in some districts like Mandsaur, Neemuch and Ujjain, there is a threat to shallow fresh water aquifers due to inland salinity. The heavy pumpage from shallow tubewells results in upward movement of saline water present in the deep aquifers, causing salinization of fresh water aquifers. The other serious issues of groundwater quality are high concentration of fluorides (mainly in granitic terrain), agricultural, municipal and industrial pollutions.

3. Water logging in canal command areas leads to soil salinity and needs immediate attention towards conjunctive use of surface and ground water. Post-monsoon flow in most rivers is used for irrigation which further reduces their flows in lean season and the rivers get converted into a series of just small pools. Water use efficiency in irrigation is generally very low and this is an area of major concern in view of resource depletion.

4. The challenge is to increase efficiency in irrigation and enhancing agricultural productivity through other improved technologies. In many regions/districts groundwater is being depleted at an alarming rate- one commonly cited reason is highly subsidised electricity for pumping. This needs to be checked either by law or by tariff.The total storage of rainfall through major and minor irrigation dams is quite small. High evapo-transpiration rates of surface water which, at times is double than the precipitation received, leads to loss of soil moisture and surface water as well. High rates of runoff due to topography result in loss of rainwater.

5. Low capacity of natural water recharge in the subsoil in most of the areas of Madhya Pradesh is also a major concern. The development of surface water resources is less than optimum in the state.Water management status is also far from satisfactory and efficiency of irrigation use is generally very low and service rendered needs improvements.

         Serious efforts are required to bridge the gap between irrigation potential graded and actual area of irrigation utilization in terms of additional agricultural production.  Also, latest research shows that trends of heavy precipitation (>100mm) events in the last 50 years is increasing as compared to precipitation events less than 100mm. Which means that not only the lower rain fall receipt is decreasing the ground water recharge over the years, but the increase in heavy precipitation events leading to higher run off are also not facilitating adequate ground water recharge.