Dhubri, April 4: The groundwater table has been depleting at an alarming rate in the lower Assam districts since the past two years.

Nearly 12,00,000 hand tubewell and electric pump sets in lower Assam districts which include Dhubri, Bongaigaon, Kokrajhar, Goalpara, Barpeta and Chirang districts, are running dry because of fast depletion of the water table in these areas.

The situation also compounded following drying up of the river basin and deficient rainfall for the past couple of years. Officials of lower Assam districts’ urban water supply department said deep water boring to the level of 120 feet now has failed to pump out water.

Hand tubewells in most of the villages and semi-urban area away from any waterbody like wetland and river, are also running dry.

A water pump mechanic of Dhubri, Ram Chandra Das said most of pumps failed to fetch water.

As the water table has fallen below 100 feet, people are not getting water for the past five years. The problem becomes acute from December to March. “This year, it is worse as even after running the pump for an hour, very little water was pumped out,” Das added.

Chairman of the Dhubri-Gauripur Development Authority, Parshuram Dubey, said he had received report of drying up of pump sets and hand tubewells from various areas of Dhubri district.

“We have asked engineers to find out the real cause of sudden fall of water table in the district and chalk out plan on how to overcome this crisis,” Dubey added.

A similar situation also prevails in Bongaigaon, Kokrajhar, Chirang and Goalpara districts where people are opting for even deeper boring to the level of 200 feet.

Ramani Kanta Barman, a resident of North Bongaigaon, said he got the deep water pump boring of 200 feet as the existing 120 feet boring of pumps went dry recently.

Traders dealing in pump sets and boring said recent fall of water table is a matter of concern and if the situation persists for another few years, it will be a situation like that prevailing in Punjab, Haryana and parts of Maharashtra where deep water boring has gone as deep as 500 feet, a level which is termed dark zone by scientists.

Executive engineer of Dhubri Municipal Board, Abdul Jalil Bepari, said reasons for depletion of groundwater table is excessive exploitation of groundwater for agriculture purpose.

“Now there is hardly any water to the depth of 40 to 60 feet. The farmers are opting for 80 to 120 feet deep boring but how long that will continue is not known, ” Bepari added.

Bepari who extensively worked on groundwater level said a similar situation prevails in all the districts of lower Assam and the situation worsened because of shortfall of rain.