TEAM HERALD
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PANJIM: In the wake of uncontrolled siphoning of water from wells by ‘water mongers’, Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar on Friday told the State Legislative assembly that henceforth the water carrying capacity of the wells ~both private and commercial, would be taken into account before granting permission for pumping out the groundwater.
The announcement was made after MLAs stressed on the need to regulate groundwater use as there are many complaints about overexploitation.
Parrikar, admitting that there has been overexploitation of water for various commercial purposes, said ‘the issue was basically due to high prices charged for pumping per cubic litre of water by government’.
“Three years back, government came out with a notification fixing Rs 20 per cubic litre for pumping water for commercial purpose. The tanker owners, who pumped the water found these amount very high and hence there was theft. Now we have reduced this amount to Rs 2 to Rs 6 per cubic litre based on the carrying capacity,” he said.
Chief Minister, replying during Question hour, said that there is a restriction on extraction of groundwater and the ground water official has been appointed to keep tab on it.
At the same time he said “it is not possible for the officer to keep tab on all wells. I would like to appeal to my colleagues to bring to officers’ notice the cases of overexploitation of water’.
The question was tabled by Independent MLA Rohan Khaunte, who said that in the absence of comprehensive database of private or commercial groundwater resources, especially of drinking water wells, borewells and even water tankers, government will have no control on overexploitation of water from wells for commercial purposes. He said that the water resources department also has no mechanism in place to measure the ground water level.
Khaunte was supported by Former Chief Minister Digamber Kamat, who said that many private wells are used for pumping out water for commercial purposes. He said that there is no restriction on number of tankers ‘per well per day’ and hence the water level of other nearby wells declines.
