HYDERABAD: Drilling borewells for any purpose other than drinking water has been banned across 1,358 villages in Telangana. An order to this effect was released recently, saying the ban is in accordance with the Telangana State Water Land and Trees Act of 2002. The ban has been imposed on villages listed as over-exploited in the groundwater State report of Telangana released in 2013.
Siddipet has the highest number of over-exploited villages, where the ban will be in effect in 168 habitations. This is followed by 120 villages in Rangareddy and 116 villages in Jagtial. In Hyderabad, the ban will be in effect in three zones - South, North and West. This is not the first time that such a ban has been implemented.
A similar ban was in place earlier too, based on report for 2009-10. However, the ban was then only in 1,057 villages. From there, it has increased sharply indicating that exploitation of groundwater is rampant in the State. What’s worse? The number of villages facing the ban will go up in future, because the groundwater report for 2017 says there are over 1,600 over-exploited villages in the State. The ban, however, will take time to be imposed in the new villages as it has to be approved by the Centre.