NEW DELHI: Water Resources Minister Saifuddin Soz has said he will soon convene a meeting of Chief Ministers to press for the adoption of the Model Bill for Regulation and Management of Groundwater that proposes to make rainwater harvesting mandatory in feasible areas.

The Bill also calls for registration and licensing of groundwater resources, including wells dug. Already Punjab, which faces Assembly elections next year, has expressed its reservations.

Speaking to newspersons on Saturday on the deliberations of the first meeting of the Advisory Council for Artificial Recharge of Groundwater, the Minister said some States had adopted the Bill, some were in the process of doing it and others had said they would not be able to do so. "So the Council has advised that a meeting of the Chief Ministers be convened and that they be persuaded to adopt the Bill," he said. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had inaugurated the Council's meeting here.

Different committees

The Council also recommended the setting up of committees in its first meeting chaired by Mr. Soz. It suggested that a committee be set up to look into the entire gamut of exploitation of groundwater by multinational companies that manufacture cold drinks and bottled water.

A sub-committee would be formed to suggest a policy for regulation of industrial users of groundwater. "Industry would be subjected to discipline," the Minister said.

Another sub-committee headed by environmentalist Sunita Narain would look into the materials/manuals developed by the Central Ground Water Board. Noted activists Anna Hazare, Rajinder Singh, Rohani Nilekani and Achyut Das would be members of this sub-committee.

Yet another sub-committee would be set up for preparing guidelines for an annual award that would be given to an outstanding village community working on `pani panchayat' (water users' associations). Mr. Soz said that so far 58 per cent of groundwater had been developed (exploited) in the country, "which was a comfortable situation."

However, unless replenished, this situation might deteriorate. Of the 5,723 blocks assessed by the Central Ground Water Board under the Ministry of Water Resources, 219 in Andhra Pradesh had been over exploited, 142 in Tamil Nadu, 140 in Rajasthan, 103 in Punjab, 65 in Karnataka, 55 in Haryana, 37 in Uttar Pradesh, 31 in Gujarat and 24 in Madhya Pradesh.

Some blocks in Gujarat, Orissa, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu had been identified as "saline."

Recharge measures

All the 1,065 blocks categorised as critical or over-exploited need to urgently adopt artificial groundwater recharge measures with area-specific technology. In the 31 `predominant suicide' districts in Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Kerala identified in the Centre's Rehabilitation Package for Farmers, the CGWB will assess ground water availability and possibility of artificial recharge.

At Saturday's meeting, it was decided that the Chief Secretaries of West Bengal, Rajasthan, Punjab, Karnataka, Meghalaya and Jammu and Kashmir be coopted as members of the Advisory Council for two years.

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