Kerala - Kochi   

Law to check groundwater exploitation proposed

KOCHI: The State government is planning to draft a new law to check the exploitation of groundwater in the State.

Talking to The Hindu here on Saturday, Water Resources Minister N.K. Premachandran said the proposed legislation would include stringent measures aimed at regulating the indiscriminate use of groundwater.

The existing law was inadequate to regulate the use of groundwater. He said the Water Resources Department had started work on the proposed legislation. It has also formed sub-committees to formulate effective policies in this regard.

“We have already received several proposals on how to protect groundwater. The Department has not set any time-frame for introducing the new law. But we are actively working on it,” the Minister said.

The proposed legislation would work out measures to overcome the legal position that ownership of groundwater was bundled along with the land where such resource was found. The Water Resources Department would recommend regulation on exploitation through legislation and effective administration with focus on water conservation, recycle, reuse, restrictions to ensure equitability in water availability and pragmatic land use.

Ground water resources would be protected and made available to meet domestic, agricultural and industrial requirements.

Rain water harvesting would be promoted to facilitate ground water recharge, especially in ground water-stressed areas. Public participation would be ensured in such programmes. The draft law would recommend creating public awareness of the importance of rainwater harvesting in recharging ground water, he said.

The new legislation would recommend steps to regulate the unchecked extraction of water from wells for tanker trade. It would also ask local bodies to work out new methods to meet the growing water demand in cities.

The demand-supply gap had increased the sale of water through tanker lorries. The local bodies would be told to conduct surprise raids to nab those involved in indiscriminate exploitation of water for commercial purposes.

Sources in the Water Resources Department said the proposed legislation would be delayed, as there were no stringent groundwater regulations in the country to check exploitation.

The legal and administrative hurdles in implementing the provisions would also be a problem for those involved in drafting the proposed law. Lack of accurate data on the number of illegal tube-wells and pumps in the State might also stretch the process of finalising the new legislation, they said.

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