After NGT order, govt to tag water bodies with digital IDs

Gurgaon: Acting on orders of the National Green Tribunal (NGT), the Haryana Pond and Waste Water Management Authority has asked the urban local bodies in the state to identify water bodies under their jurisdiction and assign them a unique identification number, in an effort to gather data for their preservation.
In an interim order passed by the principal bench of NGT in the case of Lt. Col Sarvadaman Singh Oberoi Vs Union of India and others on February 2, the tribunal had observed that 1,216 water bodies in Haryana needed protection for groundwater recharge. This order came after the tribunal had asked the state in July last year to submit the details on these water bodies. The report is yet to be submitted.

All the concerned departments have to submit the data on water bodies before April 20 so that the report can be submitted to the tribunal by the third week of April.

“The report could not be finished within the mentioned time but now has to be submitted within three weeks,” stated a letter issued by the authority on March 31. A copy of the letter has been seen by TOI.

In order to collect data for the water bodies, the state government has developed Pond Data Management software. “All the officials working on the project have been given access to the software and once they feed the data in the system, it will automatically generate a 21-digit unique identification number for that water body,” said a senior MCG official.

A detailed manual has been provided to the officials on the data required — name and type of water body (ponds, lakes, reservoirs); rural or urban; water conservation schemes; name of basin and sub-basin in which it is located; and whether it falls in a drought-prone or flood-prone area. As per the authority’s letter, there are 123 water bodies in Gurgaon.

These are split between Municipal Corporation of Gurgaon (MCG) and Gurugram Metropolitan Development Authority (GMDA). Both the departments are currently working on the identification tagging of the water bodies.

“As of now, we have identified 42 water bodies within the municipal area,” said MCG officials. The ones outside the MCG limits would fall under GMDA’s jurisdiction. A recent study by the district administration had revealed that Gurgaon has lost as many as 389 water bodies in the last 60 years.

According to the study, there were 640 water bodies as per the revenue records of 1956. However, the number is down to 251.