Dr. Avnish Jolly, Chandigarh, 8th August, 2008 :The Central Government and Haryana Government will jointly undertake a pilot project to check the fast decreasing underground water level in the State. Under the project dirty water of the villages will be collected in the village ponds and fish will be cultured in these ponds, which not only replenish the underground water table, but also augment the income of the panchayats.This was disclosed by Mr.C.P.Shrivastav, Superintending Geologist of Central Underground Water Board while inspecting the rural ponds constructed for this purpose in the village Barna of Kurukshetra district and village Saleempur Madud of Kaithal district. He said that under the project the village ponds would be divided into two parts to collect clean and dirty water separately. The clean water would be used for animals and dirty water for fisheries. The underground water table was fast depleting due to use of excessive water for growing paddy in the paddy zone of the State. If the process of using excessive water continued, even the submersible tubewell would also fail creating acute shortage of water for drinking and
irrigation purposes, he added.