The Ghaziabad Municipal Councilor and Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) leader in municipal house has urged to make ‘water wastage’ a penal offence. In a letter to the secretary, Ministry of Jal Shakti( previously, Ministry of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation), Rajendra Tyagi asked the central government to frame regulation, constitute multi tier implementation and enforcement mechanism to curb the wastage of precious, fresh water.
While petitioning Narendra Modi Government to issue directions under the Environment (Protection)Act, 1986, to all states and Union Territories to make such water wastage an offence punishable with fine or even imprisonment, Tyagi has urged it to set up Task Forces, Monitoring Committees and other effective measures for curbing the incessantly overflowing water from rooftop overhead tanks.
“The states and UTs ought to be directed to issue appropriate directions and orders, in sync with those issued by the centre, to all concerned local bodies, development authorities and other agencies to check wastage of fresh ground water from overflowing overhead tanks or even otherwise,” Tyagi has sought in the letter.
Tyagi alleged that, overflowing of fresh water from the overhead tanks in residential apartments and buildings across the country, results in gigantic ground water wastage and loss of energy. “Having travelled widely in my public life, I am pained to see that almost 50 per cent of tanks installed on roof tops have their check systems out of place, resulting in massive water wastage, which otherwise could be saved and utilized.
“We are already late in acting. The situation has assumed alarming proportions and is worsening day by day. Already, massive ground water extraction is taking place illegally in various notified, critical and semi-critical blocks of the Central Ground Water Authority (CGWA). The Composite Water Management Report prepared by the Niti Ayog has clearly cautioned that 21 cities in India will run out of ground water by 2021,” said Akash Vashishtha, a lawyer and environmentalist, working on various legal issues related to water conservation.
“In the absence of any central regulation or policy, the overflowing of overhead tanks has become a norm across the country and the local bodies and development authorities can’t act against the erring individuals and households. It is high time, the government must frame stringent laws on water wastage, if future generations are to be saved,” said Vashishtha.
With ground water extraction possible at just a button’s push in various cities and towns, the overhead tanks get overflowing for several hours a day with the dwellers and residents simply unaware of flowing water. Barely 1 per cent of users install electronic alarm systems to know that the tank is filled.
“India has around 24.95 crore households (Urban: 8.08 crores and Rural: 16.87 crores).
An average household comprising 4.9 persons store water in at least a single 1000-litre overhead tank. In 5 minutes alone, 3200 litres of fresh water is wasted. Assuming that only urban families have overhead tanks installed, at least 60 per cent of such tanks get incessantly overflowing with no check measures. In a careless discharge, estimated 48420000 cubic meters of water gets wasted everyday, which is enough to meet the water requirements of several thousand people in a single day” added Vashishtha.