Groundwater Act – effective or redundant?
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While overexploitation of groundwater has been prevented in Chennai, its misuse in the periphery of the city by private drinking water suppliers continues, writes K.Lakshmi
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Photo: Mohammed Yousuf
Measured use: Ground water as a natural resource has come under great strain.
Groundwater assumes priority and often decides the price of the land or apartment in an area.
Any one who wants to purchase a property in Chennai will first look for the quality and availability of groundwater in the locality. Bore wells remain the major source of water supply in the city.
The Chennai Metropolitan Area Groundwater (Regulation) Act was enacted in 1987 in order to prevent indiscriminate extraction of groundwater for commercial purposes. Now after 22 years, questions are being asked whether this Act is still active or has it become redundant.
Initially, the Act covered only the city and revenue villages in the neighbourhood of Chengalpet.
Regulate withdrawal
Officials of Chennai Metrowater, which is the implementing agency of the Act, said that the purpose of the act was to regulate groundwater withdrawal. Licences were issued to sink bore wells for commercial use between 1988 and 1997.
While about 100 borewells were licensed to draw water in and around the city, nearly 600 vehicles were allowed to transport groundwater then. However, Metrowater stopped issuing licences from 1997 onwards to preserve the natural resource.
Licence renewal of bore wells was also suspended.
Amendments
The Act underwent amendments twice in 1995 and 2002 to cover more revenue villages and also delegation of more powers.
Now, a total of 302 revenue villages in Tiruvallur and Kancheepuram districts, including Sholinganallur, Avadi, Kunrathur, Minjur and Ramancheri, up to a radius of 1,000 sq.km have been covered under the Act. There are plans to cover about 500 revenue villages.
“Though many people doubt the implementation of the Act, we continue to monitor transportation of water through private vehicles. Earlier, we could only seize the tankers transporting groundwater and fine them. With the successive amendments, we are able to confiscate the property and detain people under judicial custody for theft of water,” the official said.
Salinity more
Residents of Thiruvanmiyur belt suffered the impact of groundwater extraction as salinity was more in the water during late 1990s.
Another major reason for preventing exploitation of natural resource was to protect southern aquifer, which served as a drinking water source for the citizens, he said.
Earlier, the average ground water level in the Thiruvanmiyur belt was nearly 9 metres.
After the stringent enforcement of the act, the level has gone up to 4 metres, the official added.
While overexploitation of groundwater has been prevented in Chennai, the resource in the periphery of the city continues to be misused by private drinking water suppliers.
Major offenders
On an average, about 30 lorries are seized and fined during the joint drive taken up in the city fringes by the officials of Metrowater and Revenue Department under the Act.
In 2004, nearly 250 lorries were fined, which is the maximum number of vehicles seized.
About 40 lorries have been fined till May this year for illegal transport of groundwater.
Nearly 20 lakh has been collected so far since 1997, the official said.
Private water tankers were the major offenders of the Act as nearly 20-25 ml of water used to be transported until a few years ago.
As daily piped water supply is being sustained, the dependence of private water suppliers has decreased and thereby brought down the number of lorries to 500.
Protection
Besides making rainwater harvesting mandatory in buildings, protection of water bodies for groundwater recharge through rainwater harnessing was also part of the Act.
Provision of groundwater for swimming pools used for commercial purpose was also banned. However, those pools utilised for sports purpose are an exception, an official said.
Asked about the packaged drinking water industry, the officials said water extraction for the industry was also banned.
The units receive licence for the water quality and not for the source of water. However, the extraction of water for such purposes was minimal. Raids were also conducted to check the groundwater extraction by the units.
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