The Uttar Pradesh government is now mulling over a bill to check groundwater overuse The Uttar Pradesh government is hard at investigating widespread land subsidence in several districts during the second week of June this year. According to the Geological Survey of India (gsi), Lucknow, cracks appeared in districts Hamirpur, Mahoba, Jalaun, Etawah, Lucknow and Kanpurdehat (see map: Caving

DH News Service, Shrinivaspur:

Rejuvenation of ponds and lakes should be given top priority in order to improve the underground water table. New ponds and tanks should be constructed where ever rainwater can easily sink into the ground, suggested education expert M Shriramareddy.

Speaking to media persons here on Monday, he said, Gujarat government was the right example, in this regard. The new ponds and tanks constructed in that State and also, the projects meant for ensuring the sinking of rainwater into the ground, were all fruitful.

Manjit Kaur could hardly have believed it but she has been cured of a two-decade-old list of ailments. Her cure has come neither through a doctor nor a stack of pills, but instead from a community-based safe drinking water project commissioned in her native Muktsar district, Punjab, four months ago.

Now Kaur, 45, is among the first in queue to fetch a 20-litre can of treated water in her village twice a day. It was contaminated water that gave her joint pains and bleeding gums. Now that the water is clean, Kaur's health is reviving.

BHUBANESWAR: With drinking water supply in rural areas emerging as one of the major challenges, the State Government has decided to cover at least 35 percent rural population under the safe and sustainable piped water scheme (PWS). Official sources maintained that sustainability and water quality have emerged as two problems in rural water supply sector. The ground water estimate made in 1994 identified 43 blocks as hydrologically critical and estimation of 1999 shows two blocks, Bhograi and Baliapal, in Balasore district over-exploited with limited scope for further extraction.

GUWAHATI, July 24

The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Pakistan, a non-governmental organisation, has highlighted serious flaws in the Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) report concerning the extension of a multinational bottled-water company's purification plant at Sheikhupura.

The company has requested the Environment Protection Agency (EPA) to let it extend its existing purification plant. It has submitted an EIA report to the EPA for approval in order to begin construction.