Residents of Delhi may soon have to foot the bill for borewells installed illegally in their homes. The Delhi government is going to propose a new policy for this, a draft of which has also been prepared.
The Delhi government is formulating a new borewell policy aimed at ending illegal exploitation of groundwater in the capital. Officials said on Friday that a draft of the policy has already been prepared. As part of this, water meters will be installed at all domestic and commercial boreholes. However, the government has not yet decided on the rate at which groundwater charges will be levied.
Officials said the proposed policy will also provide an opportunity to regularize thousands of illegal boreholes currently operating. Under this policy, users who have boreholes will be charged based on the amount of water they extract from the ground using a water meter.
According to the HT report, a senior government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the aim of the policy is to continuously monitor and impose user charges based on actual groundwater use rather than one-time approval. The official said the Central Ground Water Board (CGWB) has the power to enforce rules related to environmental compensation for illegal boreholes, but there is no fixed tariff for legal groundwater extraction. We have sought input from CGWB and the Department of Environment on how to determine a tariff for this. Under the new system, a meter will be installed at each well connection and consumers will pay bills based on the volume of groundwater extracted. The policy will also explain the method for approving existing illegal wells.
Last year, officials informed the NGT that 15,962 illegal borewells had been closed in the capital. But officials also acknowledged that the real number of illegal wells could be much higher.
A survey will be carried out to check the water connection.
The official said that most of the illegal wells are very difficult to identify as they are located inside houses. They can also run into lakhs. We are about to begin a door-to-door survey to check water connections and are considering collecting borehole information during the survey.
Currently, it is prohibited to install wells in the capital without prior approval. District level advisory committees comprising representatives of the Delhi Jal Board, district administration, CGWB and other agencies scrutinize the applications. In addition, these committees usually only grant permission to install wells in areas where the underground water level does not fall into the “critical” category.
Currently, there is no way to control the exploitation of groundwater.
Another Water Resources Authority official said the same system has been in place since 2010. Applicants pay a processing fee of Rs 500 only once. Once permission is received, monitoring of the volume of groundwater extracted ceases. The new policy will attempt to overcome this shortcoming by introducing compulsory meters and regular user charges such as water bills.
Officials said the draft policy has been sent to the CGWB under the Union Ministry of Jal Shakti for suggestions and decision on the charges for groundwater exploitation. At the time of writing, there was no response from a Delhi Jal Board (DJB) spokesperson to a request for comment.