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UPSC Prelims 2024 · CSAT (Paper 2) · Q1

Comprehension

Medium · Passage: valid inferences

Read the following passage and answer the item that follows. Your answer to this item should be based on the passage only.

In many fast growing Indian cities the water table has fallen steadily over the past two decades. Piped supply reaches only part of the population, and households, housing societies and small industries have responded by sinking their own borewells, drawing more than the aquifer receives each year. Paved surfaces have spread at the same time, so a smaller share of the monsoon soaks into the ground and a larger share runs off into drains. As the table falls, pumps must lift water from greater depths, and the electricity needed for each litre rises. Where municipalities have set aside land for recharge structures and required rainwater harvesting in new construction, the rate of decline has slowed.

Consider the following statements:

1. Unregulated borewell drilling is solely responsible for the fall in the water table in these cities.

2. A falling water table raises the energy cost of supplying each litre of groundwater.

3. Recharging aquifers can slow the rate at which groundwater levels decline.

4. Piped supply networks in these cities have been extended to every household.

Which of the statements given above are correct?