Wednesday Titbits

Few interesting  items on this Wednesday :

1. National Green Tribunal (NGT) has shown concern about depletion of ground water in Mumbai city  and they say the main reason is the tanker water supply through out the city . It  seems that the authorities have no control on ground water extraction  from private wells in Mumbai and this is putting the city’s water scarcity at risk. Water Tanker owners and housing societies who sell ground water from wells/bore wells  located in their premises are taking advantage of  the city’s absence of watershed mapping. NGT  has now admitted a petition seeking Rs 222 Cr as compensation towards the state for causing environmental damage through commercial exploitation of ground water from 2 private wells in south Mumbai.                                 The period of ground water extraction by 2 wells  as mentioned in the petition is 11 years. As per the experts estimate that illegal business worth Rs 33,000 Cr have been generated over a decade through 300 private wells present on the city’s residential premises. Out of these 300 wells , 200 wells are in south Mumbai.The petition admitted by by NGT’s Pune branch, is by RTI activist Suresh Kumar  Dhoka. The owners of the wells are Pandya Bros. The NGT has ordered closure of these 2 wells. As per the law , permission needs to be taken from the Central Ground  Water Board (CGWB) for selling water from the wells/bore wells. But neither  Pandyas nor the other owners of private wells (such as housing societies) have taken such permission.                 The main problem is lack of monitoring. None among the CGWA, the city and suburban collectors,the Maharashtra Water Resources Regulatory Authority (MWRRA) of the local corporation BMC has the resources or manpower to curb the business of  illegal ground water extraction, and this is putting city’s water table in great danger.              The Energy and Resource Institute (TERI) has warned that if Mumbai ground water is over extracted then there is every possibility that saline water from sea will enter the subsoil  and contaminate the water table and rendering it unpotable.                                                                               As per the latest estimate there are about 1000 tankers operating in the city, and each make at least 5 trips per day. The capacity of the tanker is 10,000 litres, which means that 500 lakhs litres of water is drawn out by these tankers per day.Rough estimate is that a tanker charge Rs 3000 per trip, it means if a tanker makes 5 trips per day the net earning for the tanker owners will be about Rs 16,000 per day per tanker after paying out fuel and wages etc. So water tanker business is money spinner. The city has around 18,000 wells in the city, out of which there are about 11,000 bore wells and balance dug wells.  Mumbai Water Tanker Association President says that they do not mind taking permission but they operate in first place because of water shortage in so many parts of the city.                                                                                     There is one more reason of depleting water table is that the concrete surface  prevents  ground water recharge.  In Mumbai city most of the major roads are of  concrete and now in most of the modern housing societies major areas are of concrete, this also hampers water recharging, which also leads to depletion of water table.   SO MUMBAIKARS IT IS A MATTER OF CONCERN, and as usual authorities are  least bothered and unless it is an alarming situation then only govt comes into picture, as they only wake up when the water level rises above their heads, but in this case water level will not touch their feet, how they will wake up. This is point for thought.
2. Cricket- Most of you are aware of One Day International (ODI) matches where each teams play 50 overs, and winner is the team which score max runs in these  50 overs. Scoring a score of  300+ runs is considered as good score and in normal case it is considered as winning score. Today I am listing top 5 teams who have scored max 300+ scores.                                                                                                           At No.5 is Sri Lanka– They have scored 59 times 300+ runs, in which they also have 2 scores of 400+ also. They have lost 11 matches when they have scored 300+ runs, and won the remaining,surprisingly in their losses , once they lost even after scoring 400+ runs.                       At No. 4 is Pakistan – They have crossed 300+ score  66 times. They have never scored 400+ runs. They have lost 8 matches and won the the remaining, when they have scored 300+ runs.                                 At No. 3 is South Africa –  They have a score 300+ runs 73 times, and they have score of 400+ only once, and that too while chasing when they score 434 runs against Australia. They  have lost only 6 times when they have scored 300+ runs and won remaining.                   At No.2 is India-They have a score of 300+ 90 times, and  which include 5 times 400+ score also, which is highest by any team. They have lost 19 matches while scoring 300+ runs and won remaining.         At No.1 is Australia- They have score of 300+ 91 times, which include 2 scores of 400+ runs. They have lost 10 matches, tied 1 match and won remaining matches when they have scored 300+ runs.

I hope you enjoyed reading today’s blog.

waiting for your feed backs/comments/views.