With reference to the news item "GIDC pours down 4.43 cr in losses on water to units" (GT January 17, 2005), I find it rather ironical that GIDC should incur such a massive loss in supplying water to industrial units, when many industries (at least in the Verna Industrial Estate) have sunk borewells without permission, and are brazenly utilising the water not only for production and maintenance processes and raw material, but also for construction of a new pharmaceutical factory. While I have personally lodged a written complaint with the Water Resources Department and the Nagoa Village Panchayat some time ago, regrettably, I have yet to see the results of any action that may have been taken.
In fact, last April, when Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar chose to visit the villages of South Goa, I had met with him and apprised him of this serious problem with the Verna Industrial Estate. The CM had responded by regretting that he could not act at that time due to Election Code of Conduct which was in force for the Parliamentary elections. He had assured us however, that after the elections, he would deal with this serious problem. Since the industrial units in the Verna Industrial Estate have sunk borewells and are getting away with impunity, frustrated villagers, who have had their land forcibly taken away from them for the Industrial Estate, and who now envisage a serious depletion of our ground water resources, have started also commercially selling water from private wells, thereby further exacerbating the problem. Some extra ingenious minds have gone a step further and are filling tanks with water from the public roadside taps and selling it commercially. While the Ground Water Resources Act has sufficient teeth to deal with this menace, the implementation of it falls short in terms of infrastructure, man power and a relative ignorance of the procedures to be adopted by the concerned authorities. John Philip Pereira, Nagoa, Salcete
