Digging borewells may contaminate the water table……Priyanka Sharma
Planning to dig borewells in your housing society for greater water supply? Digging borewells and drawing water beyond the permissible limit will not only exhaust the water table but lead to underground water contamination, alerted Municipal Commissioner Swadheen Kshatriya on Wednesday.
In a bid to put an end to citizens opting for borewells, without surveying the topography condition and the water availability, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) will draft a master plan to study the feasibility of digging borewells. The civic body will tie up with the Maharashtra government run Groundwater Surveys and Development Agency (GSDA) to survey the city. “The officials will monitor through scientific technique feasibility of borewells. The findings of the report will enable the BMC to evaluate the need of the borewell,” said Swadheen Kshatriya.
The city currently has around 10,000 odd borewells. Out of which majority have dried up and remaining will soon lead to depleted underground water table. Despite this, several proposal of constructing additional borewells have been awaiting clearance from the civic body.
Kshatriya added that the civic body needs to restrain the number of borewells. “We need to monitor that how deep a borewell can be dug. An upper cap on the quantity of water to be withdrawn has to be set,” he pointed out. The survey to verify the need for borewells will take place in the city from January across the city.
Meanwhile Suprabha Marathe, assistant engineer of BMC’s Rainwater harvesting cell said, “The drive will yield result if residents come forward and register the borewell in their locality.Drawing water non-judiciously can lead to saline water getting mixed with the portable water in the city.”
Another senior civic official also pointed out that the condition of the soil has to be checked. “The chances of arsenic entering the water table will rise if rampant water is drawn from the borewells.”