GHAZIABAD: A month ahead of the arrival of monsoons, the Ghaziabad Municipal Corporation (GMC) is working on creating groundwater recharge pits in all its 100 wards to replenish the district’s eroding water table.
The rainwater recharge pits are being dug up to help collect monsoon rain and address the depleting water table.
“Several pits have been dug up ahead of monsoon to collect rainwater which can ultimately recharge the water table of the region.
We plan to dig up at least one pit in each ward, possibly in a park area.
This will serve to collect rainwater and recharge the water table,” Mander Singh Tanwar, GMC commissioner said.
After 19 years of a Supreme Court order that asked Ghaziabad to clean up all its polluted water bodies, the district is currently working on cleaning up seven of its 146 ponds that it claims can now be recovered.
Water conservationist Ramveer Singh Tanwar, who is overseeing the cleaning ponds in Bambeta, Sadarpur, Dohai, Morta, Raeespur and Sadiqpur villages, said, “We have dug up the pits in several villages.
We are working on cleaning up the ponds, but it will take time.
For immediate remedy, the recharge pits would serve as reservoirs of rainwater to correct the local water table.” Tanwar has cleaned a dozen polluted water ponds in Greater Noida and a few in Ghaziabad.
According to the reports of the Central Ground Water Board (CGWB), the water table in Ghaziabad has depleted 12 meters in the past four years.