Digging a grave!

In what could be CGWA’s attempt to shirk responsibility and make Delhi a parched desert, the authority has recently issued ‘New Borewell Guidelines’ which do away with the necessity to take permission from any Government agency before sinking a new tubewell.More than 200 borewells have been sunk in the notified districts of South and South-west Delhi in the past few weeks and the avalanche is just beginning.With the new guidelines, all that is now needed is to send an intimation to a deputy commissioner of the district to make a new tubewell 10 days before one starts the process. This has come as good news for tubewell digging contractors who have been informing people that no permission is needed to dig borewells even as much as 800 ft deep.While in 2000, the CGWA had notified the south and south-west districts of Delhi for their overexploited and severely depleted groundwater reserves, now, in an inexplicable volte face, it has made digging of tubewells a free activity.The effect of the change will be disastrous. The water table, which was already going down at the rate of one metre or more per year in these districts, will plunge more rapidly. Existing tubewells, many of which are owned by the DJB/MCD to supply water to the ordinary public, will dry up faster.The worst sufferers, however, would be the urban poor who are largely groundwater dependent. “As their tubewells dry up owing to overexploitation in the nearby posh colonies, they will be left with no source of water. Even the DJB tanker supplies will suffer since many tankers in these two districts are actually filled wholly or partially with groundwater,” said Jyoti Sharma of FORCE.With increasing depth, the water quality is also undergoing a sea of change — salinity levels have increased, calcium and magnesium levels are above safe limits, traces of iron and even fluoride have been found in groundwater samples in these districts.A FORCE study showed that while a slum cluster could make do with 300 litres of water for a six-member family, an urban village household would use 500 litres for a five-member family, an upper middle class family in DDA flats use as much as 1000 litres for a four to five members and a rich house-owner consumes 1500 litres for three to four members.The wastefulness becomes worse when the incremental source of water supply is the household tubewell — gates, cars, balconies, driveways and roads in front of the house are washed twice a day; plants are over-watered.The irony is, that the move has come at a time when Delhiites are waking up to the need for water conservation. Concepts like water conservation, water recycling and rainwater harvesting are increasingly being adopted. Citizens were also filing PILs to protect groundwater, for example, the PIL by Gurgaon residents against further commercialsiation because of lack of water and other infrastructure, PIL by environmentalists to protect the ridge area as it is the primary source of groundwater recharge etc.

Published in The Pioneer on February 15, 2009