Ecology, Environment and Conservation Paper

EXAMINING THE NEED AND NECESSITY OF WATER MANAGEMENT IN GREATER NOIDA CITY, INDIA

Ashwani Kumar and S.M. Veerabhadrappa

Abstract

Greater Noida, an industrial area is located at the intersection of the western and eastern dedicated freight corridors and is also the gateway to the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC). It lies within the National Capital Region of India's capital Delhi and is adjacent to Noida, one of the largest industrial townships in Asia. Having population of more than 1,00,000 in total as per the census 2011. Greater Noida is a rapidly developing city and moving fast towards becoming the developed city and in the process, obviously, exploitation of natural resources are required to develop an industrial corridor for its infrastructure development. Over exploitation of resources simultaneously creates and increases the scarcity leading to disastrous effects. As over exploitation of ground water leads to lowering the water table and results in effecting the quality of ground water. With more people living in Greater Noida city than ever before and many new construction work is going on, the Greater Noida city draws more water from ground water sources and also the illegal extraction of ground water for construction leads to decrease in water table level. The hardness of water is one of the issues and is a concern for residents of several sectors across Greater Noida for a long time now. The Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) level in water is found to be more than 500 ppm. However, the normal TDS in water should be 500, according to the health department. The TDS levels in water vary across all sectors in Greater Noida. The TDS level in sector alpha is 700 and about 800 in sector omega, as the TDS levels are high, quantity of undesirable minerals like calcium and magnesium are also high. This leads to several issues like corrosion of electric appliances, water pipes and taps. Today the city is facing the biggest problem that is scarcity of drinking water as the level of water is continually depleting. We need well-planned strategies at locations where heavy rainfall occurs, an extra effort could be made in order to save water for future use. Thousands of gallons of water can be saved if we keep our drainage system proper. The groundwater level, according to the CGWB, has surpassed the "critical level" and is now "overexploited", which means the city could face a serious water shortage in the years to come unless its ground water is adequately recharged. The ground water level in the district is falling alarmingly by a meter every year, says a recently released report by the Ministry of Water Resources, a consequence of the city's breakneck pace of urbanization that now threatens to derail it. With more people living in city than ever before and many new construction work is going on, currently, the Greater Noida city draws more water from groundwater. To safeguard its water, authority has planned many ways to conserve water naturally; still the region is in a state of "water stress": it uses more than 40 percent of the water available to it.