The State Groundwater department has given shape to a project for improving the inspection and assessment of the quality of groundwater.
As per a proposal cleared by the State government on June 27, the department will arrange more observation wells in regions where groundwater quality is a matter of concern. The first phase will involve the selection of one such block in each of the 14 districts and list wells in one-square-km grids.
Compiling the data from the observation wells will constitute the second phase. To do this, the department will make use of the mobile laboratory introduced under the National Hydrology Project.
The aim of the project is to compile data that offer an accurate picture of water quality in a given region. It will help to create awareness about quality issues in the local population and help government departments concerned to launch the necessary preventive measures, according to the department proposal.
A pilot study will be launched in one block panchayat where problems related to water quality is acute in nature. The department has also created a standard operating procedure for the collection of Statewide data on ground water quality.
The government order noted that while the department monitors 790 observation wells across the State, the collected data are not adequate for a general assessment of water quality. Besides, the department has water quality test labs only in Thiruvananthapuram, Kochi and Kozhikode, which is inadequate for assessing the ground water quality in the entire State, it noted. It is in this context that the department decided to give shape to a project and place it before the government for approval.
Besides, a decision had been taken to strengthen activities related to ground water monitoring and regulation in blocks in the State that are in the critical/semi-critical categories on the basis of a National Green Tribunal judgment in 2015.
Through a fresh notification in April 2022, the State government had notified regions under three blocks in Palakkad and Kasaragod district as ‘overexploited’ and ‘critical’ based on the status of groundwater extraction.
Meanwhile, the ‘National Compilation on Dynamic Ground Water Resources of India-2022’ prepared by the Central Ground Water Board (CGWB) had observed that the total annual groundwater recharge in the State had increased to 5.73 billion cubic metres (bcm), and the annual groundwater extraction, to 2.73 bcm.
