New Delhi – Industrial groundwater users now report their extraction monthly through digital flow meters, and in over-exploited areas most new industry cannot get a permit at all.
Every industry, infrastructure project and mining operation, whether new, existing or expanding, must hold a no objection certificate from the Central Ground Water Authority. Applications run through the authority online portal under the Ministry of Jal Shakti, covering fresh permits, renewals, enhancements and regularisation alike.
Measurement replaces declaration
The obligations now attached to a permit are substantive rather than procedural.
- Digital flow meters at every abstraction point, with readings uploaded monthly.
- Dedicated monitoring wells, or piezometers, to track the water table.
- Rainwater harvesting or a recharge system on the premises, for all users.
- A water audit every two years for industrial units drawing more than 100 cubic metres a day.
Taken together these convert groundwater from an unmetered input into a measured one. A factory that has never known how much it actually draws will now know, and so will the regulator.
The siting constraint
In blocks classified as over-exploited, new industry other than micro, small and medium enterprises is not granted a permit. That is a hard limit on where water-intensive manufacturing can locate, and much of industrial northern and western India sits in stressed blocks.
Where the numbers surface again
Water withdrawal, consumption, discharge and intensity form the water footprint attribute of BRSR Core, carrying external assessment or assurance for a widening set of listed companies.
Metered extraction data filed with the water regulator and assured water figures filed with the market regulator describe the same flows. Where they diverge, the divergence is documented in two places.
Source: Central Ground Water Authority guidelines and permit conditions under the Ministry of Jal Shakti.
