Implementing the new rules will be a challenge
As India's groundwater crisis continues to deepen, the Central Ground Water Board's new guidelines has set ambitious standards for the access and use of this increasingly scarce resource. However, the bigger challenge is enforcing the new guidelines, which came into effect on November 16, for 162 notified areas across the country. The CGWB's new rule prohibiting the domestic use of groundwater by households that receive piped water, for example, is bound to ruffle feathers. The lack of adequate water supply is already a contentious issue in these notified areas. Even in the national capital region, almost all of which is a notified area, the Government-supplied water is neither adequate nor delivered in a convenient manner. Moreover, the water is often not fit for human consumption as it is either poorly treated or polluted by leaking sewage water. Given these circumstances, it is hard to imagine the public giving up access to groundwater without a fight. Similarly, the real estate industry is also worried that the new norms, which include stringent conservation measures, may be bad for business. Earlier in the year, the CGWB had suggested a one-family-one-house rule for the twin cities of Noida and Greater Noida in Uttar Pradesh to deter individuals from buying property as an investment and prevent the rapid concretisation of these already water-stressed urban areas. This suggestion had met with much opposition from the builder lobby, which notably, had also received flak for not following the existing guidelines that, for example, prohibit the use of groundwater for construction purposes. The new guidelines also crackdown on industries in general and water-intensive ones in particular such as those dealing in aerated drinks, bottled water, breweries, distilleries, pulp and paper, and fertilisers. Some opposition from these industries is to be expected but much will also depend on how the authorities work with industry leaders to find a sustainable middle-path. Unless there is greater cooperation between the two, the guidelines will either remain on the books or become an excuse for state inspectors to make a quick buck on the side while the industries continue to function with utter disregard for the environment. Take the bottling factory of a major beverage company in Rajasthan's Kala Dera, as an example: The plant has been in operation since 2000, mining groundwater on a regular basis, even though the semi-arid region had been declared as over-exploited as far back as in 1998. As a consequence, the water table has been consistently falling and, every three to four years, the locals have to invest their scarce resources to deepen their wells.
Another area of concern here is the use of groundwater for agriculture. The new guidelines have steered clear of this sector ostensibly because it is too politically sensitive. However, the facts cannot be ignored: First, farmers are one of the biggest users of groundwater and, in fact, receive subsidies from the state for this purpose. Second, agriculture is a large sector in most of the notified areas, such as the many districts of Punjab, Haryana, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh. It is hard to imagine how any significant change can be brought about without including the farm sector in the mix.