Kathmandu: The government is going to regulate the underground water resource usage as groundwater resource balance here is deficit compared to the groundwater recharge. Most of the rechargeable sources are sealed up due to increasing urbanization and population growth. The government is preparing to implement ‘Groundwater Management Policy’ for the first time to regulate over extraction of ground water.

The person or institutions extracting ground water for commercial purpose will have to pay tax to the government after the implementation of the policy. The Ministry of Physical Planning and Works and Kathmandu Valley Water Supply Management Board are implementing the policy on groundwater.
Joint-secretary at the ministry, Suman Prasad Sharma told that the person or institutions extracting groundwater for business purpose will be regulated and will be charged taxes based on their water usage. “Initially, we will count the number of tube-wells at different places and issue license to them,” Sharma said to Kantipur, adding, “After finding out the numbers, we will charge tax based on the water usage.” The main objective of the policy is to stress on the balanced groundwater usage by identifying groundwater as an important source. The policy will be implemented in the Kathmandu Valley at first.
Executive Director of Kathmandu Valley Water Supply Management Board, Hari Dhakal informed that the board has started works for implementing the policy. Dhakal told that the board has to implement such a policy to regulate rapid extraction of ground water beyond capacity in the Kathmandu Valley. According to estimates, between 300 million and 450 million litres of groundwater is pumped out in Kathmandu per day.
Groundwater Resources Development Project under the Ministry of Water Resources stated that the groundwater sources account for more than 50 per cent of the total water supply in the valley by means of shallow and deep tube-wells. Ground water is drying up in many places due to excessive groundwater extraction. Groundwater extraction is found six times higher than the water recharge rate in the valley. The current drinking water supply in the Kathmandu Valley is about 90 million litres per day while the demand is 260 million litres per day.

Source: Kantipur, June 4, 2009