The heat wave this year is playing havoc with ordinary citizens across the country. Over 1,000 reportedly died in heat wave as mercury touched or topped the levels of 44-50 Degree Celsius in many parts. Thousands of hectares of agricultural land are perched. Underground water levels have further gone down both in urban and rural areas. Most river beds are dry. Cattle and poultry stocks are down. Water scarcity has become severe in many parts. The year’s below-average monsoon forecast is being seen as scary by both the farming community and the common man. The farm production was down by almost three per cent, last year. It could be even worse this time. The governments – state and centre – are preparing measures to tackle any eventuality arising out of a possible drought or shortage of rainfall.

However, the government as well as the society seems to ignore the fact that most of the ground water guzzling companies use high-powered pumps to raise ground water, which comes mostly free, converting land in the area more dry and perched as water is drawn from aquifers spread over vast space covering areas well outside their land boundaries. In a way, it could be interpreted as a ‘clear theft’ of ground water. The details of the operations of these water-based industries, thriving mostly on such stolen ground water, are not unknown to the government. A Parliamentary joint committee report, under the chairmanship of the Nationalist Congress Party’s Sharad Pawar, carries the details of such ‘water theft.’ The JPC was set up at the instance of Ms. Sushma Swaraj, former health minister in the erstwhile Atal Behari Vajpayee government. The report, submitted towards the fag end of its term in 2004, carried in some depth and details the menace of the water-based industries to the society and agriculture. Unfortunately, the next Congress-led UPA government, in which Pawar served as minister for both agriculture and food, took no interest in the important JPC report. Even the current government seems to have ignored the findings of the report allowing the beverage and bottle water industries continue to deplete ground water. Globally, such industries normally obtain water from municipal water sources or river water authorities.

The reckless ground water exploitation for business could also mean a severe health hazard because of impurities and existence of heavy metals such as cancer-causing lead and cadmium. The reverse osmosis process could reduce such impurities to the minimum. But, it could mean a massive waste of ground water since the process is known to waste almost five litres of water to produce one litre of pure drinking water. Reverse osmosis (RO) is a water purification technology that uses a semipermeable membrane to remove larger particles from drinking water. In reverse osmosis, an applied pressure is used to overcome osmotic pressure, a colligative property that is driven by chemical potential, a thermodynamic parameter. The companies often claim that they recharge aquifers through the rain water harvesting method. Such claims are mostly baseless. Rain water harvesting is possible only when there is enough rain to harvest. States like Rajasthan, Parts of Tamil Nadu, Haryana, Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat hardly get much rain. State governments and the centre pay little attention to the misuse of ground water by industry. There are also little concernment about the plight of farmers as well as the common man in the face of industrial aggression.

The reckless underground water exploitation by the industry must be stopped in the interest of both the farming community and the ordinary people, who can’t afford to spend Rs. 18-20 for a one-litre bottle of safe drinking water. The government must regulate the use of water to save its population and agriculture, as well as possible desertification of the country. (IPA Service)