MUMBAI: Grappling with acute shortage of water in the Marathwada region, industries in Aurangabad and Jalna have made provisions of rain water harvesting, in case the Maharashtra government decides to impose further cuts on water in the coming days.
According to the Industries Association, industries will be able to sustain the water cuts due to the rain water harvesting system they have adopted. "The MIDC and the irrigation department provide us about two per cent of available water from the Jayakwadi project. We do not have a large requirement of water as maximum industry houses have opted for rainwater harvesting," Ashish Gadre, president of Chamber of Marathwada Industries and Agriculture (CMIA) said.
The Association, however, demanded that the Jayakwadi irrigation project in Marathwada should get its share of water from Nashik and Ahmednagar for a permanent solution to the water crisis. "The main reason of water not being supplied to the industries in the Marathwada region is lack of sufficient water in Jayakwadi irrigation project," he said.
"We never get our share of water from irrigation projects located on upper side in Nashik and Ahmednagar districts. I do not wish to politicise the issue but the government should release sufficient water to Jayakwadi every year to resolve the issue permanently," Garde added. Water in the Jayakwadi dam is drained by steel and beer industries.
Jalna alone houses over 30 steel industries, of which each industry consumes around one lakh litres of water every day. Aurangabad, known as the beer capital of India, consumes around 6 crore litres of water daily. Garde said that there are more than 3000 small, medium and large industries in Aurangabad and Jalna districts.
"Industries such as Bajaj, Godrej Polyster and other big houses are using rainwater harvesting system keeping in mind after every two years, Marathwada comes under drought and water crises," he added. According to him, industries have reduced the consumption of water and a few industries are having water treatment plants and use recycled and reused water. Aurangabad is one of the fastest growing industrial township in Asia.
The Centre's ambitious Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC) will have an important centre to be developed at Shendra -Bidkin near Aurangabad. DMIC has attracted large business houses in the industries sector to invest in Aurangabad, the capital of Marathwada region.
State Water Resources minister Girish Mahajan had yesterday said that the government is mulling to increase water cut from the current 10 per cent for the Industrial sector in the Marathwada region if there is no sufficient rainfall in the coming week.