Full stop to ground water exploitation soon?

BANGALORE: With a view to check the exploitation of depleting ground water levels, the Departments of Minor Irrigation, Water Resources, Mines and Geology and Central Ground Water Board, are making all preparations to put a full stop to the exploitation of ground water.How the whole process started?The Government of India has constituted a Central Ground Water Authority to control and regulate ground water development and management in the country.A comprehensive model bill for regulation of groundwater development and management has been framed and circulated to all the states for adoption.The Model Bill provides for the setting up of State Ground water Authority on similar consideration as the CGWA.Based on that, the state government recently passed the Karnataka Ground Water Act 2011 (Regulation and Control of Development and Management) in both houses of the state legislature.As per the act, a regulatory authority will be framed with prescribed rules and regulations to monitor the exploitation of the ground water.“We (Water Resources Department) and Department of Mines and Geology have framed certain rules and regulations for the Ground Water Authority.The rules have been forwarded to the Legal Department for its approval.The translation of the rules into Kannada is also over.The rules will be published in newspapers, websites to invite objections.Once everything is done, the authority will be headed by the chairman of Water Resources Department and start functioning with some farmer representatives and other nominated members,” said P N Sreenivasachary, Secretary, Water Resources Department.Out of the 175 taluks, 35 have been declared as Overexploited Blocks where the ground water has been used over 200 per cent. Bangalore Urban, Bangalore Rural, Ramnagar, Kolar, Chikkaballapur and some areas of Tumkur are topping the list of Over-exploited Blocks, as per the census conducted by the Department of Mines and Geology in 2009.“We expect the rules to be ready after all procedures by this December. The rules will also enable the authority to control the crop depending on the ground water availability in that area,” Sreenivasachary added.All existing borewells in the state both residential and commercial have to be registered with the Ground Water Authority by paying a registration fee.Permission must be taken from the authority to sink borewells (initially in the areas notified by the authority and later that will gradually cover the whole state) commercial units which supply ground water and will be fixed with meters and will be monitored. Rigs which drill borewells, should also get registered.They even have to get permissions for the borewells they dig. Those who are found violating these will be penalised heavily. When Express spoke to H M Khyum Ali, additional director, Ground Water, Department of Mines and Geology, he said, “Many states like Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh have set up the authority and are strictly monitoring the exploitation.Even we will come up with such rules. We are trying to get the authority functioning by next year March. There are about 3.5 lakh borewells in total and had no authority to look into the this menace from long. For about thirty years the rig operators were not monitored. They have to get registered first.”