Moving on from the cola debate

A two-day symposium will address ground water contamination and exploitation

NEW DELHI: Remember the furore over pesticides in colas and the agitations over depletion of ground water by cola companies?

The pesticides were believed to have come from the ground water used in manufacturing cold drinks. These were, however, symptomatic of a larger crisis that looms over the country with regard to its ground water resource, a crisis that has prompted the government to seriously consider bringing in a law to regulate ownership, use and exploitation of groundwater.

Excess use of ground water resources in India for irrigation, domestic, industrial requirements, livestock consumption and other uses had led to its overexploitation.

These issues and other aspects would be discussed at a two-day symposium on ‘Ground Water Governance: Ownership of Ground Water and its Pricing’ to be held here on November 14-15. The symposium would try to evolve a viable and sustainable mechanism for exploitation and regulation of the ground water resources in the country.

A focused ground water management policy supported by suitable regulation and legislation are likely to be recommended by the symposium for implementation so that development and regulation of ground water go hand in hand.  The symposium will also attempt to sort out issues of allocation of ground water to different sectors to arrive at a logical and implementable pricing policy. There has been a long felt need for a law to protect fast depleting groundwater resources and ensure equitable distribution of water.

Vice president for public affairs and communication of Coca Cola, Dipak Jolly, welcomed the move and said his company had created re-charge potential six to seven times of what it extracted. In Rajasthan, he said, water table had actually risen in the area where its unit was located.

Power, chemicals, leather industries were the biggest water guzzlers, using 20 times the water for every unit produced. Indian law has virtually no restrictions on who can pump groundwater, how much and for what purpose. Rights in ground water belong to the land owner. It forms part of the dominant heritage and as with land ownership is governed by the tenancy law of the state.

The legal framework also implies that rich land lords can be water lords and indulge in openly selling as much water as they wish. The worst-affected are small and marginal farmers.

Under many traditional systems of law, land owners were entitled to the use of all resources above and below their land including ground water.