NEW DELHI: Delhi government’s free water scheme is being misused by several housing societies, a monitoring committee has informed National Green Tribunal.
The committee led by a former high court judge told a bench headed by NGT chairperson Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel that after availing 20,000 litres water for free, these societies start extracting groundwater.
“The extraction of groundwater by using tubewells or borewells is being done to avoid payment of water tariff. Delhi Jal Board (DJB) should take effective steps to prevent this practice,” the panel said.
Earlier this year, the AAP government had told Delhi assembly that around 20,000 litres of free water each month was provided across the capital and benefitted 5.3 lakh consumers.
In contrast to the committee’s finding, the AAP government had also said that the scheme, which cost state Rs 400 crore, led to an increase in water conservation as consumers reduced consumption to avail the benefit of the scheme. Moreover, the scheme also led to an increase in the number of functional water meters, the government has claimed.
To prevent wastage and misuse of water, the panel recommended use of “polluter pays principle”. “For judicious use of water, at the time of sanction of connection, the consumer should be asked to declare their probable consumption. In case the consumption is excessive, the consumer should be charged with higher tariffs,” said the panel report.
Earlier, an interim report submitted by the Yamuna monitoring committee to NGT had also pointed out that “in some of the group housing societies, the per household consumption works out to an incredibly low consumption, which raises the question of whether such meagre consumption points leads to other malpractices like using borewell water unauthorisedly”.
