No law in sight to regulate groundwater extraction

Ahmedabad city and Daskroi taluka qualify for being notified as well. A report on Domestic Ground Water Resources in 2004 has already described the two places as overexploited areas.

According to the parameters in this report,an area is termed overexploited when drawing of water exceeds the replenishment capacity. The area is called “critical” when drawing is 90 to 100 per cent of replenishment limit. Ranpura and Sanand talukas fall in this category. Exploitation of 70 to 90 per cent is below critical and Barvala,Bavla,Mandal and Viramgam talukas fall in this category.

Ahmedabad not being in the list means there is no need to seek permission to dig bore wells of whatever depth even beyond 200 metres. However,R C Jain,regional director of Central Ground Water Board (western region),is not happy with this situation. The Government of Gujarat has not set up any authority for regulation of bore wells because there is no law that empowers the state to set up such an authority.

The result: indiscriminate extraction of water goes on in the district with people selling water commercially. “It is high time that the state government enacted a law to control exploitation of ground water to save the district from impending depletion of ground water level,” Jain said,adding that water diverted from the Narmada canal to the Sabarmati will replenish the groundwater level.

When asked about this,State Water Resources Minister Nitin Patel said: “It is not yet decided when to bring in the legislation,but we are contemplating such a move. It will be done only after examining all aspects.”