From Tuesday onwards, Gurugram Metropolitan Development Authority (GMDA) mandated water tankers to make online booking in advance at treatment plants and STPs. The move will bring water-tanker mafia under surveillance.
“This service is open to only authorised registered users such as vendors or builders in GMDA area. The users have been given login credentials to book a tanker of a specified capacity, specified location and type of water to make online payment. This will ensure that only authorised vendors with authorised tankers are getting water from the plants,” read a GMDA statement.
“This system will ensure cashless transaction, online monitoring, ease of operation and transparency in the system,” added V Umashankar, GMDA CEO
RK Sharma, water expert, echoed the same thoughts, “We hope online system will put a brake on mater mafia operating in the city.”
The water tankers are mostly used by developers of the city to get raw water for construction from Basai and Chandu Budhera water treatment plants and two sewage treatment plants (STPs) at Dhanvapur and Behrampur.
The situation has been made difficult because these developers use million gallons water in a city already running on short supply. The developers also get water from other sources.
Besides the raw Yamuna water from the two plants, water mafia also gets water through illegal borewells.
However, the developers are supposed to use recycled water of the two STPs against a nominal payment, but quality of recycled water of the two plants is considered bad for construction.
However, residents have expressed their doubts.
“The developers do not use recycled water. The developers have hired private tankers who extract groundwater and also get raw Yamuna water from the Basai and Chandu plants. By making entry exit online, I do not believe it would make any drastic impact on extraction of ground water in the city,” said SK Sharma, a social activist.
If experts are to be believed, the water mafia extracts 50 lakh litre ground water daily to feed industry, construction sites and for other purposes.
