Vijayawada: Brainstorming session on securing groundwater

Vijayawada: A one-day national workshop to discuss the problems of unprecedented demand for water on account of exponential growth in infrastructural development, industry, agriculture and food production and urbanisation will be held in Vijayawada on March 24.

The proposed workshop will focus on climate change supplemented by unwarranted anthropogenic activities and extreme natural hazards that have imposed shift in the monsoon cycle and the pattern of uneven distribution of rainfall.

India being agrarian nation invests in about 80 per cent to 85 per cent of its available water resources in the agriculture sector. The State Government on its part will explain the series of measures taken up for conservation and optimum utilisation of water. It will explain the measures it had taken up for water harvesting.

The workshop will discuss as to why despite all measures to conserve water in the country, the resource has been depleting.

Experts on groundwater and hydrology from various parts of the country will visit Vijayawada and share their knowledge to improve the groundwater levels.

The event will be organised to mark 25 years of association of Andhra Pradesh Groundwater Department with the National Hydrology Project, which is providing expertise to the state for the last five decades on water management system.

Director for Groundwater Department A Vara Prasada Rao said the National Hydrology Project of Union Government has brought the paradigm shift in monitoring and management of groundwater resources in Andhra Pradesh.