Madhumitha Viswanath By Express News Service CHENNAI: Drought coupled with water tanker strikes is nothing new to the city and it only got worse from 2016 onwards. And, the issue of awarding license for groundwater withdrawal has its fare share of problems. One cause for concern is few gaps in the Chennai Metropolitan Groundwater Regulation Act of 1987, which needs to be revamped, said experts and officials. The recent bifurcation of Kancheepuram has also slowed down the entire process, said officials. From August 2019, the State has awarded 605 temporary licenses for extracting and transporting groundwater from 302 villages in Chennai, Tiruvallur, Kancheepuram and Chengalpattu. The problem is nearly 70% extraction takes place from unscheduled village. “Most borewells are located in villages that are not governed by the Act and hence, we are unable to monitor extraction of water from these areas. PWD becomes the sole authority when it comes to these villages and hence, we cannot award licences,” said a senior Metro Water board official. Currently, temporary licences to private tankers are given based on report submitted by hydrologists. Critical, semi-critical nature of Firkas or revenue blocks as said by the Central Groundwater Board’s 2017, will also be taken into account, said officials.“We will award licences based on where water will be drawn, groundwater yield, how much water will be drawn. But only if one department becomes the sole authority to award such licences, illegal and over-extraction can be stopped,” said a hydrologist. Senior PWD officials said the department is coming up with a act that will bring scheduled and non-scheduled villages, under one department Residents of Southern suburbs claim many tankers are operating even without temporary licences. “A reply to an RTI said no licences have been awarded in Kancheepuram, but this is different from the ground reality,” said S Sankar, a resident of S Kolathur. “When we draw water from one place, we aren’t given licences if we transport to another location. Only 300 lorries out of 5,000 have been given licences,” said S Murugan, secretary, TN Private Tanker Lorry Owners Association.

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