Admin measures to curb groundwater misuse

In the wake of a minor girl’s tragic death by falling into an illegal borewell and in a bid to keep a check on the deteriorating groundwater resources, the district administration has made it mandatory for all drilling agencies to get themselves and their machines registered.

In the wake of a minor girl’s tragic death by falling into an illegal borewell and in a bid to keep a check on the deteriorating groundwater resources, the district administration has made it mandatory for all drilling agencies to get themselves and their machines registered.

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All agencies, those under government, semi-government and private sector, will have to apply for registration of their machines to the ground water cell by July 10.

While stating this on Tuesday, an administration spokesman said district magistrate PC Meena issued these orders as a "preventive, corrective and remedial measure to check depletion of ground water".

The district magistrate has invoked Section 144 of Cr P C in the entire Gurgaon district, prohibiting drilling of borewells without obtaining prior permission from the competent authority.

Meena has directed all the owners in possession of boring machines to furnish their details to the hydrologist at the ground water cell.

The details should contain name of the owner, his permanent and present address and details of boring machine like make and model.

Meena also ordered the machine owners to submit fortnightly reports regarding work undertaken to the hydrologist.

He said a strict compliance of this order should be ensured and necessary checks should be carried out by the concerned SHOs, tehsildars and by teams constituted for this purpose.

As many as 17,000 of the total 20,000 borewells in Gurgaon distirct are already registered.

More than 500 illegal borwells have been sealed this year.

The district administration has asked the departments concerned and all the teams constituted for monitoring borewells to file action taken report alongwith an affidavit to it within 10 days.

BDPOs, deputy director of agriculture, deputy director of horticulture, district soil conservation officer, assistant agriculture engineer, SE public health, SE irrigation, GM HSIIDC, Municipal Corporation of Gurgaon (MCG), GM DIC, Huda administrator, joint director industrial safety and health, sarpanches and SHOs of the areas will have to ensure that all the abandoned and open borewells or tubewells are properly filled.