English Quiz for Upcoming Bank Exams 2017 – Set 11

‘Water scarcity looms large in the state.’ This
headline is enough to disturb people who have yet to forget the days when taps
flowed for an hour every second day and long queues in front of public hydrants
needed police presence to maintain order. But then, it was a fact that in
Rajasthan, drinking water had to be transported by train last year. And hasn’t
someone predicted that the next war will be fought not over oil but for water?

What comes like a heavenly
blessing in this sombre setting is
the hope ignited by watershed management effort in Madhya Pradesh. And the
charm of it is that no aid or know-how had to be imported. It was just robust
commonsense along with unstinted
public participation that made the difference. The Deendayal Research
Institute, in collaboration with the District Rural Development Agency,
Majhgawan (Satna), took up an area of 12,536 hectares and formed 17
microwatershed schemes to tackle low productivity, lack of irrigation, a receding water table, shortage of
drinking water, high soil erosion, etc. The ‘watershed area’ — the area over
which rainwater collects — was taken as a unit. Contour trenching and bunding
check the flow of water. Trenches are excavated
and bunds erected (with the soil taken out) to check the free flow of the water.
This prevents soil erosion while plenty of percolated water raises its sub-soil
level

The vision of water management
programmes is as simple as they can be. Instead of tanks or dams, water is kept
where nature keeps it — underground. Thus, there is no loss due to evaporation.
The old philosophy of ‘water should not be allowed to run, it should walk’ has
been replaced by the new one which states that ‘water should creep and,
ultimately, come to a halt’. The whole point is to ensure that not a single
drop is allowed to flow more than 10 metres above the surface. The paradoxical
scenario will be of dry streams and unfilled tanks in the rainy season.
Instead, the water that seeps in, reappears in wells, tube-wells, pond and
stop-dams later when and where wanted. This strategy is the result of a
calculated comparison of costs. An assessment was made of the amount of water
saved and the expense incurred in each of the approaches available in the
village of Dantha in Khandwa district. The cost of water secured through
contour trenches, earthen checks, etc worked out to just 4 paise per litre. The
system is so watertight that even if it rains up to 10 centimetres a day —
double the average daily downpour at Cherapunji, one of the heaviest rain
receivers in the world — not a drop of water will flow down the drain. The
result is a water surplus even in
conditions of low rainfall — which was the case during the last three years.