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Continuous Water Supply in Cities & Towns is Burning Desire.
The urban water supply and sanitation sector in the country is suffering from inadequate levels of service, an increasing demand-supply gap, poor sanitary conditions and deteriorating financial and technical performance.
India depends heavily on rainfall for agriculture – 61 percent of the land under agriculture depends on rain and 60-84 percent of rural India practices rain-fed agriculture.
Water Supply is the Burning Desire for the Human civilization in any country. Each and every Government, Politicians and people will concentrates on this. If there is no supply of drinking water then the agitations in the people will be – within days. We can’t do any thing without drinking water. If water for cultivation is less or moderate or no water in any particular area, problem can be solved by supplying the food material to that effected areas to some extent and for some period of time. But if drinking water is not available Migrations of the people and cultures will take place immediately from that particular area and the development will cease. So our primary step is that we have to concentrate on the sufficient water supply for the human needs in the Cities, towns and villages.
Gram panchayats, Municipalities, Municipal or Metro corporations are not able to supply adequate water to the people but they are collecting heavy taxes. No one is objecting this type of attitudes. They are bothered about their Salaries and incentives and facilities but not for the facilities that should be provided by them. This is ridicules.
Continuous Water Supply in Cities & Towns is Burning Desire.
In towns or cities, people are purchasing the daily needed water from the municipalities and from the concerned department persons or from the private business people. In general every tenant or house/ apartment owner is having a burden of Rs: 300/- to 5000/- per month as maintaining charges towards the water expenditure. This is ridiculous. When the departments are collecting various taxes from the people, they have to supply the water to each and every person. It is also the fundamental right of the citizen. If the water supply is not sufficient then they have to plan for it. But their planning is for escaping pressures from the people. We can notice clearly that when the departments and the employees are gaining money, their planning does not satisfy the people. And for show put up the political people will involve for some time and they were benefited by sharing the money from the corrupted/business persons.. We have to control this and we have to give our services to our people. We planed this in a perfect way so that the people in the cities, towns and villages will not suffer for water.
Our domestic water requirement varies from 50–200 liter per capita per day depending on our life style, the quantity of water actually used to be of best quality for drinking is just about 4 liters per capita per day.
In most cities, centralized water supply systems depend on surface water sources like rivers and lakes. Chennai, for instance, has to bring in water from a distance of 200 km whereas Bangalore gets its water from the Cauvery River, which is 95 km away. Where surface water sources fail to meet the rising demand,
As the demand-supply gap widens, more groundwater is being exploited. Of the water supplied by the municipality, Groundwater levels within the cities abnormally fell down due to the needs along increasing the corruption.
Continuous Water Supply in Cities & Towns is Burning Desire.
Actually Governments and the best politicians will plan in a good manner but the Corrupted persons will obstruct or damage the useful plans and implementations. They will convert or alter those plans for their selfish benefits. We have to raise our voice in such all issues. But no one is interested now in the present situations. The people are accustomed for suffering and bearing the problems and they are also prepared to bear extra burden with a lot of pains. Because they can’t do any thing for them or for their area. We will fight for our people and we will implement our root level solutions in the Country.
At present the water works departments, municipalities corporations and etc., are trying to increase the water supplies by different methods.. By increasing the rain water sheds, recycling of drainage water, Increasing bore water through bores, different kinds of rain water harvesting by ponds, lakes, canals, artificial reservoirs, old digged unused wells and many other methods. They are all developing these methods in the cities or towns apart from villages for increasing the water supply. When there is scarcity of water increasing number of bores or wells may solve the water problem only to very lower Percentage only. Already the cities are like deserts without water and the departments and politicians are increasing wells and bores and others in the said desert places only. So how we can say that they will solve the water problems of the city or town ?
Continuous Water Supply in Cities & Towns is Burning Desire.
Presence of buildings and covered surface areas in metropolis do not allow much Groundwater recharge as these produce high run-off. The urban run-off known as storm water generated in large volume usually goes away as waste water. Arrangements should be made in all metropolises to collect and divert the storm water in to various parks and available open space to form new water bodies. All the existing water bodies in urban areas should also be cleaned and maintained as these are very important source of groundwater recharge. As consumption of stored rainwater is still not acceptable in most Urban areas, the roof tops must therefore be used necessarily to collect rainwater and divert the same exclusively for groundwater recharge through an appropriate structure.
Treated sewage and waste water are to be used as far as possible for agriculture and similar other non domestic use.
We all are groundwater users. Farmers use it for irrigation, industries for production and a vast majority of population use it for drinking and domestic purposes. Groundwater, although a renewable resource but is limited in its occurrence in time and space. The lacking intelligence or common sense pursuit for extracting more and more groundwater by all the users, has already started exerting tremendous pressure on this limited resource.
Continuous Water Supply in Cities & Towns is Burning Desire.
Only 12% of rainwater is being used in country. The rest flows into sea. Very less percentage of groundwater and surface water are being used for drinking purposes.
Groundwater reservoirs have more storage capacity than all the surface water put together. It is as aquifers, powerfull streams and in many forms and shapes. Moreover, groundwater is not open to evaporation and do not occupy any valuable surface area
When water is pumped out from a water well, the water level begins to fall and the aquifer starts releasing water from the aquifer into the well. When two wells too close to each other are pumped simultaneously, the two radiuses of influences get superimposed with each other resulting in a cumulative drawdown in each well. When a number of wells close to each other are pumped simultaneously, the fall of water level in all the pumping wells starts accelerating which may result in pumping failure due to shortage of water in some of the wells that are shallower than others. Groundwater levels undergo a seasonal fluctuation. It rises during rainy season due to recharge and falls during summer season due to lack of recharge and groundwater extraction
The most important step required to improve the groundwater availability in the over-exploited regions (including semi-critical and critical) of the country is to take up large scale artificial groundwater recharge activities. Although the concept is well appreciated but any major initiative for large scale construction of artificial recharge structures has so far remained neglected.
Continuous Water Supply in Cities & Towns is Burning Desire.
Millions of open dug wells have either gone dry or are yielding little water, and that too mostly seasonally. This is because — the tube wells or open dug wells are in the limited area only. The groundwater moves through porous rock formations similar to the way water flows through a sponge with inter-connected pores. In nature, no space remains empty. Therefore, the pore space within the underground rock formations, no matter how small, remains filled either with air or water (sometimes oil and gas in deeper formations). Given a continuous supply, water enters a porous rock formation replacing the air and gradually saturates all the pore spaces. As the process continues, excess water tends to move through the saturated formation under gravitational force. Water can even seep through poorly cemented house walls and concrete basements, particularly during rainy season.
Therefore, when a storage space such as a dug well is constructed within a saturated rock formation, a part of the water from within the formation flows out as free water (specific yield) and gradually accumulates to fill in the well till it reaches to a level equal to the water level in the formation. Water also flows through joints, fractures and contact zones between two hard rock formations. Sometimes, one can even see water flowing out through a fracture or a contact zone in a dug well constructed in hard rock formation tapping such zones giving credence to the erroneous notion that groundwater moves underground as a subterranean stream or river.
Continuous Water Supply in Cities & Towns is Burning Desire.
Rainfall (precipitation), an integral part of the hydrological cycle, is the source of all fresh water in the earth. We tend to misjudge the enormous quantity of water brought down from rainfall in our neighborhoods. For example, the volume of 1 meter (1000 mm) rainfall that falls over 1 hectare (10000 sq. m) of land surface is equal to 10000 cubic meter or 10 million liters. With 1170 mm average annual rainfall and 328 million hectare of land area, India receives nearly 4000 billion cubic meter of water annually from rainfall.
Rainfall however occurs in bits and pieces with varying duration, distribution and intensity. After reaching the surface of the earth, a part of rainwater goes as infiltration, a part as run-off while the remaining water goes back to the atmosphere as evaporation and evapo-transpiration through a complicated inter-related process. Again, all the run-off does not end up in the rivers and the sea, a substantial part of it remains stored in natural and artificial storage structures, parts of which continue to infiltrate and evaporate.
As per the official estimate, out of the total annual precipitation of 4000 billion cubic meters of water in the country, nearly 1780 billion cubic meters (45 per cent) goes away as surface run-off, 1320 billion cubic meters (30 per cent) as evaporation and 900 billion cubic meters (25 per cent) as sub-surface infiltration. Considering topographical, technical, socio-political and other constraints, utilizable quantity of fresh water has been estimated as 1123 billion cubic meters comprising of both surface (690 billion cubic meters) and groundwater (433 billion cubic meters).( Given data is very low )
Continuous Water Supply in Cities & Towns is Burning Desire.
Occurrence and distribution of groundwater is controlled primarily by the geology of the area and the quantum of recharge received by the existing aquifer formations. Thus the alluvial tracts of river valleys and the coastal plains containing alternative deposits of sand and clay of varying thickness are rich in groundwater. Regions underlain by hard rocks such as a large part of south India is poor in groundwater occurrence. In fact from compactness point of view, regions underlain by hard rock formations like basalt and granite are not expected to yield any significant quantity of groundwater. But nature has its own way.
The top portion of hard rocks in many areas develops extensive fractures and secondary porosity to a considerable depth due to weathering. The highly weathered granular hard rock derivative known locally as murrum functions as a good shallow water table aquifer. Presence of deep sheeted intensive fracture system in granite, contact zones between two similar or dissimilar hard rock formations, sets of joints in sandstone, solution channels in limestone are also known to contain and transmit sufficient quantity of water under confined and semi-confined conditions.
It is interesting that – Rajasthan despite having such thick layers of sand formations is still poor in groundwater occurrence. The reason being that the recharge received from rainfall by these thick sand formations is never adequate to build up a water table. The entire infiltration gets disseminated and lost within the unsaturated zone before reaching an impervious layer at depth for building up a water table. However, shallow dug wells in sand formations underlain by hard rock or a hard pan at shallow depth, yield moderate quantity of groundwater depending upon the recharge received. Rajasthan and Gujarat also have some typical deep confined aquifers comprising of sandstone but with time the yield of these aquifers have reduced considerably due to over extraction and lack of recharge.
Continuous Water Supply in Cities & Towns is Burning Desire.
It is the nature of the aquifer tapped and not the type of well which is responsible for yield. A well is merely an extraction structure. Choice of the type of a well will depend on factors like depth of the aquifer, availability of technology for its construction, cost and convenience. Dug wells are ideal groundwater extraction structure for shallow unconfined aquifers. These structures are preferred by farmers not only because these have considerable storage capacity but also can be constructed and deepened in phases using local expertise.
Dug wells are most suitable for hard rock regions of south Indian States where the top weathered and fractured formation serve as the aquifer containing groundwater under shallow water table condition. Depending upon its depth below the water table, a dug well can store considerable quantity of water for extraction as per convenience. Common horizontal centrifugal pumps which are relatively less expensive can be used conveniently to lift water from a shallow dug well. However as the regional water table in most parts of the country has gone down substantially over the past few decades due to over-exploitation, millions of existing dug wells in our country have either gone dry or are yielding only seasonally that too after extensive deepening.
A dug cum bore well is ideal when a confined aquifer occurs within a reasonable depth below the water table aquifer which is already being tapped through a dug well. When the existing confined aquifer is tapped through a vertical bore drilled at the bottom of the dug well, the chances are that the water level from the confined aquifer which occurs under hydrostatic pressure will rise and flow into the existing dug well. Water can then be pumped out conveniently from the dug well.
Tube wells are most ideal for tapping high yielding confined granular aquifers occurring at considerable depths. Tube wells are also convenient for tapping groundwater from a thick unconfined granular aquifer with deep water table. Tube wells are also known to yield considerable quantity of water from sandstone and limestone aquifers occurring within multilayer formations and deep seated fractures in granite rocks under favorable geological conditions.
Continuous Water Supply in Cities & Towns is Burning Desire.
The Central Ground Water Board (CGWB) has prepared the geohydrological map of India presenting a regional picture of groundwater occurrence in the country. Although such macro level map is useful for regional level groundwater development programs but it is not adequate for selecting an individual well site.
Individual well sites are best selected by Geohydrologists. To select a good well site in an area, the Geohydrologist would need to collect data from the existing wells in the vicinity. The survey known as “well inventory” would reveal the rock type, degree of weathering, depth to water table, thickness, inclination, yield potential etc., of the sub-surface formations observed in different wells. The information could be further supplemented if strata chart, yielding zones, final yield etc., of one or more existing bore wells in the neighborhoods are available for reference. Based on the assessment about the various strata likely to occur at a given site and their yield potential, the Geohydrologist gives his recommendations.
In an area with no existing dug wells, the Geohydrologist could also carry out a special survey known as Vertical Electrical Sounding (VES) in which, the resistivity of different sub-surface formations are measured along depth. Based on the measured and interpreted values of sub-surface resistivities and other local information, the Geohydrologist is able to predict the suitability of a site for water well.
Resistivity survey is an indirect method and is as good as the data available and interpretation of the available data made by the surveyor. This survey requires a piece of land with at least 100 m open space in both directions from the point of measurement and requires an hour or two to complete. This method is applied extensively for regional survey to delineate different zones. It is the most popular, low cost survey technique available for groundwater well site selection. However, in a hard rock region even a well trained professional Geohydrologist cannot always guarantee adequate yield from a bore well drilled at the recommended site.
Continuous Water Supply in Cities & Towns is Burning Desire.
A centrifugal pump uses vacuum to lift water, theoretically, it can lift water maximum from a depth of 33 ft (10.03 m) which is equal to one atmospheric pressure. There is no such limit for lift on the delivery side. Water can be lifted to the desired height by increasing the number of impellers (stages) placed serially within the pump casing. A centrifugal pump is used very conveniently for pumping water from a shallow dug well or other open water bodies for overland conveyance through pipes.
Submersible pumps are most suitable for lifting water from a bore well for domestic use.There is no need for a suction pipe in the system as the entire pump assembly is lowered directly into the water.
Another variation of centrifugal pump used for lifting water from relatively large diameter bore wells (>12 inch diameter) is a Vertical Turbine Pump. These pumps are suitable for low head, high discharge use installed commonly by urban water supply agencies in high yielding tube wells.
Twin pipe ejector or Jet pump, is sometimes used in low yielding bore wells. Water is first pumped into the bore through an inlet pipe allowing it to come out through an attached rising pipe of lesser diameter.
There are many kinds of Water lifting Methods – Manual, Animal, Wind, Gravitational, Solar, Electrical,Magnetic,Tidal, Air, by using Coal/wood/waste material, Thrust, and many.
Continuous Water Supply in Cities & Towns is Burning Desire.
Groundwater recharge (inflow) takes place from rainfall, canal seepage, field irrigation, tanks, influence seepage from rivers, inflow from other basins, evapo-transpiration, groundwater drift (extraction), effluent seepage to rivers, outflow to other basins., in many areas surface water bodies like tanks, canals, rivers, irrigation returns etc., also contribute to groundwater recharge (mostly during post-monsoon season). Conversely, groundwater outflow through the existing wells, effluent seepage etc., continues throughout the year including the recharging period. In an ideal approach, all these elements of inflows and outflows should be taken into account while working out the groundwater balancing.
Continuous Water Supply in Cities & Towns is Burning Desire.
Water covers three quarters of the surface of the earth and 97.2 per cent of it is in oceans, but this water is too saline for our use. The distribution of remaining water has been estimated as 2 per cent as ice caps, 0.62 per cent as groundwater, 0.009 per cent as fresh water lakes, 0.8 per cent as salt water lakes, 0.001 per cent as atmospheric water and only 0.0001 per cent as rivers.
A considerable quantity of groundwater occurs at depth not accessible to us. Also, large quantity of groundwater even from an accessible depth may be brackish/saline as in the coastal aquifers. Fresh water in earth is therefore very limited and is getting scarcer by the day. A considerable quantity of fresh water is also being lost due to chemical pollution of irreversible nature. The scarcity no doubt has started affecting the entire population at large but the effect is more pronounced amongst the poorer section of the society.
Of the total water used in our country, nearly 80 per cent is consumed for irrigation, 12 percent for industrial needs and 8 per cent for domestic use. Presently, more than 60 Percent of irrigation water comes from groundwater. Surface water irrigation projects require large reservoir occupying useful land, subject to evaporation and storage losses and the water needs to be transported a long distance for use through a complex distribution system.
Continuous Water Supply in Cities & Towns is Burning Desire.
Groundwater, on the contrary occurs more extensively, not subject to open evaporation and is easily accessed and managed by an individual user. Another viable alternative source of collecting fresh water is rainwater collected from a catchment’s area is stored in small depressions and surface storage tanks close to the agricultural lands for direct use in irrigation. Rainwater is also harvested from rooftops serving as a “catchment’s area” particularly in urban areas with moderate to high rainfall and stored in tanks for domestic use. Excess rainwater can be diverted for recharging of groundwater. It should however be remembered that when a surface water body is freshly dug, in the first few years it contributes, as per the site condition, maximum to groundwater recharge. Over the years, as the water body starts depositing different blocking materials and also silt at its bottom sealing most of the immediate pore spaces, quantity of recharge reduces drastically. It is therefore a good practice to filter and de-silt a surface water body from time to time for restoring its storage and also from groundwater recharge point of view.The practice of enhancing groundwater recharge over and above the natural recharge is commonly referred to as artificial recharge. For undertaking large scale artificial recharge activities the following considerations should be taken into account –
Surplus water is available as source water for recharging. Quality of the source water should be compatible with that of the aquifer to be recharged. The design of the recharge structure should be appropriate as per the site conditions. Functioning of the recharge structure is to be sustained through regular maintenance. Although, water harvesting structures like check dam, tank, pond etc., as such do contribute to groundwater recharge as per their site conditions, but site specific recharge structures are more effective for artificially increasing groundwater recharge particularly in areas where water occurs under water table condition at considerable depth. Many artificial recharge structures therefore provide for a pipe to deliver water directly into the aquifer bypassing the overlying unsaturated zone, where percolated water otherwise tend to get dissipated.
Continuous Water Supply in Cities & Towns is Burning Desire.
Any surface water body can contribute to groundwater recharge. However, quantum of recharge may become very insignificant when the bottom of the water body gets clogged due to siltation or when the water table is very deep. For this reason it is advisable to construct site specific structures suitable for accelerating groundwater recharge.
The following points for construction of an artificial recharge structure are important:-
A.) The structure should be reasonably close to the source water to be used for recharge. B.) The quantity and quality of the source water should be of an acceptable level. C.) The structure should be constructed in such a way that it allows percolation of silt free water directly in to the aquifer. D.) The rate of percolation through the structure should be adequate to justify its construction. E.) The structure should preferably be constructed in areas where existing bore wells show a trend of falling water level. F.) The beneficiary communities are willing to take charge of the structure for regular maintenance.
While series of pits, contour trenches and other water harvesting structures constructed at suitable sites have been found to contribute to accelerated groundwater recharge.
An abandoned dug well can be used very conveniently as a makeshift artificial recharge structure. Millions of dug wells in the country which at one time were yielding groundwater have gone completely dry as even the post-monsoon water table has gone below the depth of such dug wells.
An abandoned dry dug well is just as good as a deep pit. When water from an external source is stored in a dry dug well, water starts percolating into the formation and contributes to recharge depending upon the permeability of the formation and depth to the water table.
First of all, the abandoned dug well should be clean enough i.e. free from any dumping of undesirable materials like plastic, tree leaves, soil, bricks etc. Secondly, the water allowed to be stored in the dry well from an external source for recharge should be silt-free as far as possible.
Continuous Water Supply in Cities & Towns is Burning Desire.
If considerable amount of silt enters the well, the pore space of the formation in the immediate vicinity of the bottom and side of the well would eventually get clogged up preventing any meaningful percolation. It is quite common to find that where dug wells are being used for groundwater recharge, rainwater laden with full silt load is allowed to flow directly into the dug well through some makeshift drain or channel, sometimes with a perfunctory provision for a settlement pit. Needless to mention, the ability of these abandoned dug wells to recharge would be reduced to naught rather soon due to siltation unless cleaned thoroughly at regular intervals.
It may also be remembered that only dry and abandoned dug wells should be used for recharging. If water from external sources is filled into a perfectly or seasonally functioning well, then unwanted deposits will prevent the entry into and percolation from the well.
Groundwater recharge through abandoned dug wells is meaningful for the needed areas where there are other wells to tap the benefit of the additional recharge i.e. sacrifice the shallow dug wells to feed the other deeper wells.
According to the Central Ground Water Authority any building with roof size larger than 100 square meters located in an area with rainfall higher than 800 mm are well suited for roof water harvesting. Water harvested from roof top can be stored for direct use. Excess water if any can also be used for groundwater recharge though a properly constructed artificial recharge structure.
Continuous Water Supply in Cities & Towns is Burning Desire.
When a well is pumped, water level in the well starts falling. Initially, the rate of decline of water level is faster which gradually slows down as the aquifer starts releasing water into the bore/well simultaneously. Water level will continue to fall as long as the rate of pumping remains higher than the rate of release of water from the aquifer in to the well. However, in a pumping well, if at any point, the quantity of water being pumped out becomes equal to the quantity of water being released by the aquifer, water level in the well stabilizes and attains a steady state condition. When pumping is stopped, the water level starts rising again, to begin with at a faster rate which slows down as the dynamic water level approaches the static water level.
Continuous Water Supply in Cities & Towns is Burning Desire.
The locations of the buildings or apartments are permanent. Hence we can’t change their locations. When there are insufficient ground water in particular areas, we have to plan to get the water easily from the other sources. In general cities will be expanding in the peripheral or in urban agglomeration areas and in the surrounding of the villages. After a period of time they will be untied with the respective villages or towns or cities. The density of the population in these areas will be very less according to the usage of the ground water resources. In our country about 70-80%agriculture is depending only on the ground water resources. So adjacent to the end wards of the city or colonies -to- the nearby villages, the open Agricultural lands, Mountains, Valleys, Lakes, Ponds, Reservoirs, canals. Rivers and unused governments lands etc. will be there. They will be within a distance of 1-6 KM. So, Our Governments must take positive steps in connecting the ground water by increasing number of bores (Tube Wells), agriculture and farm wells, lakes, ponds, Artificial reservoirs, Over Head tanks in these areas and they can supply sufficient water to the concerned needed areas, through the pipe line systems or 1-3 feet built closed canals. In these areas ground water will be more because the rain catchment’s area will be more, so the water harvesting will be done naturally by the nature and also we must plan to construct many water tanks and overhead tanks in those areas.
We have to connect these out flowing bore water to the main pipes to supply water to the needed adjacent areas of the cities along with the supply of those particular villages too. This type of actions will reduce the ground water extraction in the limited urban areas and the present ground water in that area can be utilized to other central parts of the cities. This overall management will solve the water thirst in the cities or towns in each and every country. The cities and towns will have almost completed water supply infrastructure. Just connecting the pipe lines originated from the peripheral villages or other locations is the simple way to feed the needed water. City People are expending crores of rupees towards their apartment’s water maintaining charges. If they divert one months water maintaining expenditure for this then their life time water maintaining will be solved. Our Party will implement this for the benefit of our people and Nation.
Continuous Water Supply in Cities & Towns is Burning Desire.
And we can also reduce the usage of the water in the agriculture by using different methods like Sprinkler Irrigation systems, Drip irrigation system etc., this leads to adequate supply of ground water to the irrigation, adjacent villages, towns and cities needs. We have to take all possible positive steps for the benefit of the country and people without damaging the nature and the people’s rights whether it may be property or any.
Continuous Water Supply in Cities & Towns is Burning Desire.