The Nadia district is known for its rice cultivation. Either less land must be used for boro agriculture, or artificial ground water replenishment must be encouraged. Using the annual net groundwater draught and the annual utilisable groundwater resources, the stage of groundwater development for the block was determined. The total groundwater recharge, which accounts for two major sources of groundwater recharge, namely rainfall and irrigation return flow, was estimated to be 873.79 MCM. The net annual groundwater draught of the study region was calculated to be 1265.76 million cubic metres (MCM). The projected groundwater development stage for the block was 144.90%, which is greater than 100%, and denotes an overexploited area.

Highlights

• Ground water is being used as the major source of irrigation water in most of the district of West Bengal.
• Withdrawals of ground water excess to the amount of water get recharged under natural process during the period of monsoon (June/Jul-Sept/Oct).
• The situation is sometime so alarming that the state concerned department become compels to declare some region as black zone to check the excessive withdrawal of ground water.