Plan needed to solve water crisis

Statesman News Service

MALDA, April 24: The Malda district magistrate Mr CR Das has asked the irrigation department to prepare a master plan to ‘recharge’ under ground water to resolve the crisis of surface water in the district. The executive engineer of irrigation department Mr S Misra pointed out the problem of surface water crisis and explained its cause to the engineers of public health engineering, irrigation and other concerned department in ameeting yesterday.“If the ongoing situation continues without recharging the ground level water, the water table would drop further and the district would lose all surface water in the next 10 to 15 years,” Mr Misra, said.The executive engineer also criticised the present practice of rampant use of submersible pumps, shallow and deep tube wells and held the practice responsible for surface water crisis. “We need to develop surface water containing capacity and to recharge under ground water level to resolve the present water crisis. There is need to increase depth of silted rivers and their tributaries through excavation across the district setting up check dam”, said Mr. C R Das, the district magistrate of Malda. “The water level in all rivers such as Mahananda, Punarbhaba, Tangan, Bhagirathi, Pagla and others has gone down abnormally in April this year in comparison with past records,” he said.