For the first time in years, the Water Resources Department (WRD) will launch a project to install artificial recharge shafts on a large scale to boost percolation and help stabilise the water table in over-exploited and critical blocks in various districts across the State.
The State government has recently approved a proposal to install nearly 576 artificial recharge shafts in 23 districts at a cost of ₹6.74 crore. The WRD’s State Ground and Surface Water Resources Data Centre will implement the projects in districts, including Ranipet, Salem, Erode, Tirupattur, Vellore, Tiruvannamalai, Cuddalore, and Tenkasi. Officials said recharge shafts would be installed close to waterbodies or storage structures such as check dams to direct rainwater into the deeper aquifers.
Recharge shafts will be installed at a depth between 10 m and 100 m, depending on the site’s lithology. These structures will minimise evaporation loss and accelerate recharge rate depending on the type of aquifer, officials said. The project will be completed before the onset of the Northeast monsoon. According to the Tamil Nadu Groundwater Resource Assessment 2024, 392 of the State’s total 1,202 firkas have been identified as places were groundwater resources are over-exploited and extraction is over 100%. This is marginally lower than the 395 over-exploited firkas assessed in 2023.
