Assuring Sustainable Economic Benefit for Farmers by Using Ground Water in Semi-Arid, Hard Rock Areas in India & the Role of UNESCO-IUGS-IGCP Project 523 (GROWNET

Out of about 1.2 billion people in india, 68% people live on agriculture as their main occupation. ground water is therefore animportant resource which provides over 70% of rural drinking water supply and about 50% of water used for irrigation. rains inmonsoon season from june to september, provide the main source of water but they last only for four months and the rest of the yearis dry in most of the hard rock region. about 67% of india is occupied by hard rock terrain and about 30% of the hard rock area fallswithin semi-arid, drought-prone zone receiving less than 500 mm rainfall per year. in semi-arid, hard rock terrain in india and inmany other low-income countries, the surface water resources are scarce and polluted. ground water occurs in this area in theshallow weathered zone up to about 15 meters depth and in the deeper fractures and fissures up to about 100 m depth. bore wellsreaching up to 60 to 100 meters depth, installed with hand-pumps, are very common for providing safe drinking water supply tovillages. this causes a positive improvement in the health of villagers and an economic advantage by reducing the number ofworking days lost due to illness.agricultural production in these semi-arid areas is just marginal because the rain-fed crops suffer from the vagaries of monsoonrains. the average farm-size per family of 5 persons is about 2 ha. there are 3 to 5 drought years within a span of 10 years, whichleave the dry-land farmer in perpetual poverty. in the past 3 years, over 4,200 farmers have committed suicide due to continued cropfailures. ground water, therefore, forms a very important and reliable resource which, if available in a farmer?s plot of land and ifutilized prudently for irrigation by digging or drilling a well, could transform the farmer?s lifestyle. even if the farmers are able tosave one rainy season (monsoon) crop through protective irrigation from dug well, and if possible take winter and summer crops onsmall plots, they would stabilize in the rural scenario. otherwise, the farmers would migrate to nearby cities and stay in slums. manycities in india and other low-income countries are suffering from an ever-increasing flux of rural population thereby chocking andpolluting the urban environment and putting stress on urban infrastructure. ground water development for irrigation is the lifeline forrural economy.however, in many watersheds in semi-arid, hard rock areas, the pumping of ground water is increasing and in some watersheds itis more than the recharge available from rainfall. in these over-exploited watersheds, the yields from the wells are not sustainable.still, farmers in hard-rock area of peninsular india are taking all risks to develop ground water for irrigational and domestic supplybecause of the economics underlying its use. this paper discusses the economics of ground water use and gives guidelines forsustainable development, such as availability of soft loans to farmers, insurance for failed wells and people?s participation inaugmentation of recharge to ground water. some of these guidelines have been included on the website www.igcp-grownet.org ofunesco-iugs-igcp project grownet, (ground water network for best practices in ground water management in low-income countries) for which the author of this paper is the project leader. reverse migration from cities to villages is possible onlyif sustainable ground water development is done in these semi-arid areas, through watershed protection and recharge augmentationactivities, as advocated by the grownet project.