Ground Water Extraction Guidelines

Ground Water Extraction Guidelines

Subject: Environment

Guidelines to regulate and control Ground Water Extraction

Context :Just over a fortnight after it declared as “illegal” the extraction of groundwater by 2,069 industries, including projects and units of big corporates like Tata Steel, Adani Wilmar and Ramdev’s Divya Pharmacy, the Central Ground Water Authority (CGWA) granted relief to them.

Guidelines to regulate and control Ground Water Extraction

1. Water Conservation Fee (WCF):The revised guidelines introduced the concept of water conservation fee to discourage inefficient use and wastage of groundwater. It is the certain amount of fee to be paid depending upon the use of abstracted water, area of abstraction and amount of abstracted water.
2. NOC for groundwater extraction: All industries, business establishments, infrastructure projects and even certain individual households have to obtain NOC through a web-based application system for ground water abstraction. Exemptions for NOC are the same as that of WCF.
3. Use of recycled and treated sewage water: It seeks to encourage the use of recycled and treated sewage water by industries.
4. Penalties: Guidelines have provision of action against polluting industries
5. Groundwater monitoring Instruments: It envisages mandatory requirement of digital flow meters, piezometers and digital water level recorders.
6. Water Audits: Guidelines insist mandatory Water audits for industries extracting groundwater 500 m³/day or more in safe and semi-critical and 200 m³/day or more in critical and over-exploited areas
7. Rain water harvesting: It calls for mandatory roof top rain water harvesting except for specified industries (industries falling in red and orange categories as per CPCB)
8. Prevent Groundwater Contamination: It envisages measures to be adopted to ensure prevention of groundwater contamination in premises of polluting industries/ projects.

Who all need to pay the fee?

• All industrial units
• All business establishments; hotels and hospitals
• Infrastructure projects such as residential and office buildings
• Individual households that draw groundwater using a delivery pipe of a greater than 1” diameter
• Exemptions
• Agricultural users,
• Users employing non-energised means to extract water,
• Individual households (using less than 1-inch diameter delivery pipe)
• Armed Forces Establishments during operational deployment or during mobilization in forward locations