GSPCB has capped around 10 borewells in the Cuncolim Industrial Estate as effluent has been discharged into the same. Activists are demanding ‘pay for polluting’.
How much will they be made to pay? All surface water including house wells and River Mandovi are polluted and not safe. Can they be purified now? So far only the groundwater was unpolluted as one had to sink costly borewells to get to the same. This groundwater has now been polluted: can you purify the entire table? No, you now need to treat the water drawn from the same at a cost.
Are the rogue factories going to pay for all such treatment? This act is like venting out the air from Covid patient rooms into the Doctors’ chambers. It is a criminal act.
Borewells are sunk to draw water. Were pumps installed in the same? If not, then the well was sunk with the express criminal intention to discharge untreated effluent. The culprits will now say the same was sunk for rain water harvesting-no pump required here. In fact, the rain water harvesting of directing surface water directly into the aquifers is totally wrong. Just to stop water running off to the sea, we are collecting the same but polluting the entire ground water table. The natural process of filtration by soil is bypassed. Ground water table must not be used for rain water harvesting by all and sundry.
Watch the culprits go scotfree.
R FERNANDES, Margao
