23 drinking water packaging companies sealed in district

Coimbatore: Following the directions of the Madras high court, public works department (PWD) officials along with tahsildars have sealed 23 drinking water packaging units that were functioning without the required license in the district as on Sunday.
As many as 52 such units are functioning in the district, collector K Rajamani said. “The remaining companies will be sealed on Monday. Five of them have applied for the license.”
A few days ago, HC had directed the State government to close the illegal drinking water packing units in the state before Monday and file a compliance report on Tuesday.
Following the judgement, packaged drinking water manufacturers across the state called an indefinite strike, which entered fourth day on Sunday. The manufacturers also assembled for an urgent meeting at Eachanari on the city outskirts.
“The government order that mandates obtaining groundwater clearance from the PWD was passed only in 2014. But close to 920 companies, including 35 in the district, have been functioning for long,” D Suresh Kumar of the Package Drinking Water Association said. “We have other certificates, including those from the Small Scale Industry (SSI) and Indian Standard Institute (ISI). We were facing a lot of practical difficulties in obtaining the license. The order mandates that no two borewells should be operated within a distance of 75 metres. When we had started the companies, there weren’t any borewells within the specified distance. But as years passed, several buildings and borewells were set up on the surrounding areas,” he told TOI.
“Also, before submitting the application to PWD, we need to obtain permission from the revenue inspector or tahsildar saying that there is no waterbody within five kilometres radius. The officials would sign only after inspecting the location. It is a very time-consuming process,” he said.
The units in the district are consuming only a few percentage of the underground water, Suresh said. “If the sealing drive continues, fake companies will enter the market. “We request the government to exempt those companies set up before 2014 from the government order and provide us the license,” he added.