REVIVING DEFUNCT BOREWELLS

 Few years ago on a visit to the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore I happened to sit through an International seminar on Water and thereafter was in a discussion with the delegates who happened to be from many different countries and did have a long chat with one of the delegates from Germany and was given to understand that borewells continue to be one of the key sources of Water in many countries and ground-water normally found at some 80 feet.

Bore wells are an excellent isolated source of independent water for households and could be a costly affair. The problems I see is that after few years some of these wells dry up. There are many reasons why they dry and could vary from case to case.

Some seven years back I found the bore well in one of my houses dry. I was aghast and upset and finally the immersion motor inside failed. The general rhetoric was that all the borewells in the vicinity are defunct and so is yours. I felt sad but decided to do something about it.

I put some brick bunds and routed the  water coming from the stairs towards the bore well and left it so for for some five years. During rains water gushing from the stairs would route itself towards the bore well.

Some one year back I was curious to know the state of the well and then came Samy an expert at studying such situations. He brought with him a long wired camera connected to a laptop and I was manning the lap top as he let the cable down the well. He showed me three water sources at 40ft,80ft and 120 ft respectively. I was given to understand the borewell is 120 ft in depth and the source seen at 120 ft was a bountiful one and Samy suggested that putting a new immersion pump would not be a waste.

I left it  that way for nearly a year and decided to go in for a new immersion pump.One evening I bought a pump and this person Samy got to work.The burnt motor was removed earlier and the entire piping removed and the new motor fit ..and touchwod and by some providential grace the well is as fit as a fiddle and performing much better than what it did earlier.

There is a lesson in this experience that defunct borewells can be revived. Dig two trenches 1 ft  long,wide and deep  some two feet away from the bore well  and let rainwater from the terrace or other catchments swell into these trenches during rain. Leave such an arrangement  for nearly four years and then check the well by camera  traversing through the entire depth. New water lines and sources should form as a result of water flowing down these trenches. Such a system creates new water lines and sources from many feet around the well and acts as a repository that can be a perennial water source.