Pune: After identifying exploited ground water levels in watersheds of several village of Pune district in 2013 by the Groundwater Survey Development Agency (GSDA), the situation has further deteriorated after six years. 

According to GSDA 2013 survey, the groundwater levels of watersheds in the villages of Pune district were 130 per cent exploited. Along with few villages of Pune, villages from seven districts of the state was also identified as critical watersheds. 

Deputy Director of GSDA Bhagyashri Maggirwar said that according to the 2013 survey, the groundwater levels in the watersheds in the 22 villages of four talukas of Pune district were 130 per cent exploited, and according to the 2017 report, the watershed in the same villages of the district were noted to be over exploited.

“We have identified nine watershed in seven districts of the state including- Pune, Satara, Aurangabad, Ahmednagar, Jalgaon, Buldhana and Amravati. These watersheds were identified in 2013 as the groundwater level was below 70 per cent,” Maggirwar added.

After identifying these critical watersheds in 2013, the GSDA had carried out awareness drive to change crop patterns, direct sale of the produce, making recharge shafts, water budgeting and installing sprinklers. However, even after carrying out all these interventions, six district out of the seven are noted as over exploited, critical and semi critical. 

The reason behind critical watersheds was due to groundwater extraction at huge scale, Maggirwar said.

Maggirwar added, “We will be conducting another survey in 2020 where the exact reason of overexploitation of groundwater in the identified critical watersheds will be known. Hence, right now, we cannot make any comments over it in relevance with the 2017 report.”

Director of GSDA Kaustubh Diwegaonkar said, “We use 80 per cent of surface water and 20 to 25 per cent of groundwater. The State holds 30,000 million cubic metres of groundwater from which it had been noticed that from last five to six years, only 16,000 million cubic metres of groundwater has been used.”