Drought conditions are looming large in India now. There is much more worrying news that is coming now which does not seem to have caught the attention of many. The Grace mission (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment) has found out that in India’s north-west – including Delhi, the water table is falling by about 4cm (1.6 inches) per year. It has also come to the conclusion that climate conditions like rainfall are not the reason for this. This is mainly because of usage of ground water resources for irrigation purposes. The farmers to irrigate the field are mining more underground water resources. Also it is stated that irrigation rather than rain fed fields increases the yield of crops like Paddy. This once again underlines the need for a systematic implementation of rain water harvesting.
