Question

Read the passage carefully to answer the questions that follow. Some of the words have been highlighted in bold to let you trace the words easily. The Union government has finalized a Rs 6,000-crore scheme to tackle the country’s depleting groundwater level. The Atal Bhujal Yojana, which is now awaiting the Union Cabinet’s clearance, will be launched in Gujarat, Maharashtra, Haryana, Karnataka, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, covering 78 districts, 193 blocks and more than 8,300 gram panchayats. Half of the Rs 6,000 crore will come from the government’s budgetary support and the World Bank will give another Rs 3,000 crore. This scheme comes at a very critical time for the country. According to a World Bank report, about 245 billion cubic metre of groundwater is abstracted each year in the country. This figure represents about 25% of the total global groundwater abstraction. In the past four to five decades, 80% of the rural and urban domestic water supplies in the country have been dependent on groundwater, the report added. Nearly two-thirds of India has underlying hard rock formations, which allow water to recharge only very slowly. The excessive extraction of groundwater, the debilitating impact of climate change on monsoons, which recharges aquifers, and lax implementation of water harvesting laws will impact not just the population’s drinking water needs, but also agriculture and industrial growth.