In a bid to check illegal extraction of groundwater, the Groundwater Regulation and Management Committee of the Delhi Government has directed the Deputy Commissioners to seriously deal with the complaints of groundwater extraction. The committee headed by Delhi’s Environment Secretary Sanjiv Kumar on Wednesday made it clear that the concerned DCs will also carefully analyse the complaints before taking action. The committee said Delhi’s excessive reliance on groundwater and its rampant, often illegal, extraction through tubewells and borewells have left eight districts in the city “over exploited”.
As per the data collected by the Central Groundwater Board (CGWB) and based on surveys conducted in 2009, Delhi is among the four States that have 76 “over exploited” zones. In Central Delhi, the over exploited areas include Karol Bagh and Paharganj; in East Delhi the areas are Preet Vihar and Vivek Vihar; in New Delhi district Chanakyapuri and Parliament Street are the over exploited areas; in North Delhi it is Kotwali and Sadar Bazar; in North-East Delhi it is Seemapuri and Shahdara; in North-West Delhi the areas are Model Town and Saraswati Vihar; in South Delhi, Defence Colony, Hauz Khas and Kalkaji; in South-West Delhi, Delhi Cantonment, Najafgarh and Vasant Vihar; and in West Delhi, Patel Nagar and Rajouri Garden are listed as over exploited.
The meeting was attended by senior officers from Central Groundwater Authority, Irrigation and Flood Control Department, DJB, Deputy Commissioner (SW), Office of the Divisional Commissioner and Department of Environment. During the meeting, DJB informed that there are about 2,000 water supply tankers in the city. Of these, only 188 numbers of applications for registration of 327 water tanker vehicles have been received by DJB. Out of which only 16 have been registered.
Notably, the National Green Tribunal had recently said that water level in Delhi has gone down in the recent past by hundreds of feet. “No consumer (using illegal borewells) is paying the price. This becomes an incentive, which leads to loss of groundwater and shortage of potable water. Despite a government notification issued in 2010 to check illegal extraction, things have gone from bad to worse,” it had said.