In India Water Week, New Delhi 10-13 April,2012, Proceedings WATER AND FOOD SECURITY OF THE CENTRAL INDIAN CRATON ANITA GUPTA*, SUBRATA KUNAR, SUDHANSHU SHEKHAR, ARUNANGSHU MUKHERJEE Central Ground Water Board, Bhu Jal Bhawan, NH-IV, Faridabad-121001, India *sushilanitagupta@yahoo.com ABSTRACT Water and food security have become major issues in the world today. With ever increasing population, the per capita availability of natural resources like land and water is shrinking fast. Therefore, identification and utilization of comparatively efficient system through proper investigation are significant. In the present paper an effort is made to evaluate the comparative groundwater potential within the Central Indian Craton for food and water security. The cratonic area based on study has been classified into three categories. The basin rock area of the craton is endowed with best land and ground water condition for agriculture, irrigation and drinking water purpose. Proper management of natural resources like land and water in this area and similar areas in other cratons can be crucial for futuristic strategies for water and food security. INTRODUCTION World over the water and food security have become major issues today. Predictably, India will be the highest population nation in near future. Whereas India is presently house of 17 percent of the world population but having only 2.6 % land and nearly 4% of renewable water recourses of earth. The global changes in climatic conditions have further complicated the scenario. It is therefore imperative and essential that our national water and food security plan should be meticulous and scientific. This must provide the requisite confidence to the nation for a sustainable growth. Achieving this is largely dependent on reliable scientific data base of all related aspects. With ever increasing population, the per capita availability of natural resources like land and water is shrinking fast. Therefore identification of comparatively efficient system through proper investigation can be significant contribution. The present communication is an effort to identify comparative potential of food and water security means within the area of investigation. The Study area, i.e. Central Indian Craton is one of the water stressed area of country. The area is largely drained by Mahanadi River and Godavari River system and receives around 1200 mm of average rainfall, mostly through SW monsoon. However the population in the Central Indian Craton and are heavily dependent on groundwater resources for water and food security. METHODOLOGY To workout the comparative potential for food and water security within the Study area- Central Indian Craton, the geological maps of the Geological Survey of India [1] have been used to group the geology according to age and similarity of petrological characters. The geomorphological layer and soil layer of the area prepared based on NRSA data and soil map of NATMO respectively. The ground water exploration data of CGWB [2,3,4,5] for the Central Indian Craton superimposed over the geology, soil and geomorphology layer in a GIS platform. The data so obtained were analysed to classify the craton area into three distinct categories. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS The Central Indian Craton (CIC; [6]), also known as the Bastar Craton [7] or the Bhandara Craton [8], in Peninsular India occupies nearly 160000 km 2 . It includes entire lower half of Chhattisgarh State, SW parts of Orissa, parts of northern Andhra Pradesh and eastern part of Maharashtra. The CIC is bounded by two mobile belts – the Central Indian Tectonic Zone (CITZ; [9]) and the Eastern Ghat Mobile Belt (EGMB) in NW and SE respectively. Mahanadi and Godavari grabens surround the CIC in NE and SW respectively (Fig.1). CIC is adjacent to the Dharwar Craton in south, Singhbhum Craton in northeast and Bundelkhand Craton in northwest. The CIC comprises mainly Archaean and Proterozoic rocks. Archaean rocks include Sukma (Bengpal) gneiss- granitoids, metasediments, Bhopalpatnam, Kondagaon and Balaghat granulites, the Bailadila Iron Formation, Amgaon Group of rocks etc .Proterozoics in CIC include rocks of Dongargarh and Kotri Supergroup including Dongargarh- Malajkhand and equivalent granitoids, Sauser and Sonakhan Group of rocks and platform sediments of Purana basins [10]