Tankers are fast depleting Mumbai’s groundwater

MUMBAI: The authorities have no control on groundwater extraction from private wells in Mumbai, putting the city’s water security at risk. Water tanker owners and housing societies who sell groundwater from bore wells on their premises are taking advantage of the city’s absence of watershed mapping.

The National Green Tribunal (NGT) has now admitted a petition seeking Rs 222 crore as compensation towards the state for causing environmental damage through commercial exploitation of groundwater from two private wells in south Mumbai.

The period of groundwater extraction by the two wells as mentioned in the petition is 11 years. Going by this, experts estimate that illegal business worth Rs 33,300 crore has been generated over a decade through 300 private wells present on the city’s residential premises (200 of the wells are in south Mumbai). The petition, admitted by the NGT’s Pune bench, is by RTI activist Sureshkumar Dhoka.

The owners of the wells, as mentioned in the petition, are the “Pandya brothers”, who live in Cward (Bhuleshwar, Kalbadevi and a part of Marine Drive). The NGT has already ordered the closure of the two wells. The matter is set to be heard on May 28. If an order favouring the petition is passed, it will be the country’s biggest such payout.

As per law, permission needs to be sought from the Central Ground Water Board (CGWB) for selling water from wells. But neither the Pandyas nor the other owners of private wells, such as housing societies, in Mumbai have done so, the petition says.

The problem is a severe lack of monitoring: None among the CGWA, the city and suburban collectors, the Maharashtra Water Resources Regulatory Authority (MWRRA) or the BMC has the manpower or resources to curb the practice of illegal groundwater extraction. This puts the city’s water table at great risk.

The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) has warned that if Mumbai’s groundwater is over-extracted, saline water from the sea will enter the subsoil from the coast and contaminate the water table, rendering groundwater unpotable. The CGWB has warned that by 2025, India’s average groundwater availability per person will be just 25% of what it was in 1951.

Going by Mumbai’s massive surface concretization, this percentage for the city is projected to be much less than the national average. Meanwhile, Mumbai Water Tanker Association president Jasbir Bira said tanker owners don’t mind taking permission, but they operate in the first place because large parts of the city experience water shortage.

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