NEW DELHI: Union Water Resources Minister Uma Bharti Thursday said that apart from promoting rainwater harvesting, the government has been trying to increase the ground water level artificially.
Ground water has continuously been exploited due to population pressure, increased industrialisation and irrigation, the minister told the Lok Sabha during Question Hour.
The government has been "promoting rainwater harvesting and artificial recharge measures in the country", she said.
Ground monitoring data of the Central Ground Water Board, which carries out monitoring four times a year on regional scale through a network of observation wells in India, has said that there are 1,071 'over exploited', 217 'critical', and 697 semi-critical areas in the country.