A day after the Punjab Water Regulation and Development Authority (PWRDA) announced the charges to be levied on the industry and other non-exempted users from February 1, several leading industry associations in Punjab demanded immediate rollback of the hefty cost imposed for extracting groundwater in the state.
The industry bodies said the charges were high and would make the local manufacturers uncompetitive in a highly cutthroat market. They have been urging the state government to hold prior consultation before putting any such additional burden on the industry. The PWRDA directions, however, do not cover groundwater use for agriculture, drinking, and domestic purposes. Government water supply schemes, military and central paramilitary establishments, urban local bodies, panchayati raj institutions, and improvement trusts are also exempted.
CII Punjab chairman Amit Thapar, while terming the charges as extremely high, said the new levy will be detrimental to the industry in the state. “These charges have been imposed without consultation with the industry. These will slow down investment in food, textile, paper, and pharma, and render the industries in these key sectors uncompetitive,” he said without mincing words.
Comparing the charges with neighbouring Haryana, Thapar said that they (Haryana government) too had proposed similar charges but did not issue the notification. The maximum groundwater extraction slab for the industry in Haryana is ₹10 per cublic metre as against ₹ 22 notified by PWRDA, he said, pointing out that the industry in Punjab consumes a minuscule 0.7% of the total water extracted in the state.
{{/usCountry}}Comparing the charges with neighbouring Haryana, Thapar said that they (Haryana government) too had proposed similar charges but did not issue the notification. The maximum groundwater extraction slab for the industry in Haryana is ₹10 per cublic metre as against ₹ 22 notified by PWRDA, he said, pointing out that the industry in Punjab consumes a minuscule 0.7% of the total water extracted in the state.
{{/usCountry}}PHDCCI chair, Punjab chapter, RS Sachdeva said the industry is not opposed to paying for groundwater, but the charges should be reasonable. “The state government should hold consultations as promised by it and build consensus before imposing such levies. Till the time this is done, the notification should be put on hold,” he said. Badish Jindal, chairman of Federation of Punjab Small Industries Association (FOPSIA), also termed the decision to exempt agriculture and levy the charge on the industry as lopsided. “What happened to all the talk of promoting industry? If the state has to grow, the secondary sector should also be promoted,” he said.
Calling the charges a dampener, Sudershan Jain, president of Knitwear and Apparel Association of Ludhiana, said that industry in Punjab is already burdened with high taxes. “We are already paying charges for use of effluent treatment plants (CETP). These groundwater charges are not justified at all,” he said.
The water regulatory body, which notified the cost on usage of groundwater on Saturday, has also imposed charges on commercial establishments such as shopping malls; privately run educational institutions and construction companies in case their monthly usage goes beyond the specified limit of 300 cubic meters. Among the industrial units, bottling plants, sugar mills, liquor factories and steel industrial units are the top targets as using huge quantity of water in day-to-day operations.
The cost levied on water usage would depend on the location of the user as 60 blocks particularly in three districts - Ludhiana, Jalandhar, Moga, Barnala and Sangrur plus the urban areas of Amritsar, Ludhiana and Jalandhar would have to pay the maximum, as these fall in the orange zone designated by the PWRDA as most stressed where exploitation of subsoil water is maximum. Here, for water usage ₹ 8 per cubic meter for usage more than 300 to 1,500 cubic meters. There are four slabs and usage above 75,000 cubic meters invites a cost of ₹22 per cubic meter. The PWRDA has asked all these institutions to take permission for drawing water.
There are 37 blocks in the green zone and 53 in the yellow zone, with regulatory body having divided the entire state in 150 blocks. Yellow zone blocks fall in the parts of districts - Hoshiarpur, Gurdaspur, Ferozepur and Bathinda and green zone blocks designated by PWRDA are in districts Fazilka, Bathinda, Muktsar, Ropar and Hoshiarpur.
Groundwater usage in yellow zone invites a cost of ₹ 9 per cubic meter for usage in the lowest slab between 301 to 1,500 cubic meters and a maximum of ₹ 18 for usage above 75,000 cubic meters. In green zone, the minimum per unit cost ranges from ₹ 4 to ₹ 14. PWRDA will collect the groundwater levy through district level bodies.