City residents are digging deep for drinking water, as a supplementary source to piped water supplied by the Kerala Water Authority and open wells. The extraction of groundwater through borewells has gone up since last summer when the city witnessed acute drinking water shortage.
Statistics gathered from the district office of the State Ground Water Department (SGWD) and Private Borewell Drilling Contractors Association shows that on an average around 50 borewells are sunk every month in the city. The district office of SGWD alone digs at least 20 borewells a month, based on applications from the public. There are 12 rigs operated by private parties in the city and they drill around 300 borewells monthly.
Sole exceptionExcept the ban on constructing borewells in Athiyannoor block panchayat, which is declared as an overexploited place, there is no restriction in digging borewells.
The real cause of concern is the indiscriminate drilling by real estate developers, says an SGWD official.
Individual housesOwners of individual houses dig up to 250 feet to 300 feet to draw water but flat promoters go to even 1,000 feet, which could lead to serious depletion of groundwater.
“It is doubtful whether the city receives enough rainwater to recharge the groundwater drawn by borewells,” the official says.
There are also complaints that builders extract water on a continuously when the normal practice is to shutdown the pump for a minimum of 12 hours, says another official.
Need for actionExecutive Engineer, District Office of SGWD, Wilson, says indiscriminate digging has to be looked into. “We receive several complaints from residents as they feel that sinking a deep borewell nearby would dry up their wells. When we receive a complaint we carry out a feasibility study and give permission depending on its outcome,” he says, adding that the Ground
Water Authority is planning to make registration of private rig operators mandatory so as to keep tab on construction of borewells.
LicenceSGDP sources say the Personnel and Administrative Reforms Department, which had carried out a study, suggested among other things bringing private drilling agencies under ‘Survey cum Drilling Licence,’ to streamline their activity.
“The study team strongly feels that if an open well can meet the requirement of the public, they should go for it, as drilling a borewell/tubewell is nothing but spearing the heart of earth,” the report prepared by the Personnel and Administrative Reforms Department said.
