ISLAMABAD: Justice Umar Ata Bandial of the Supreme Court on Wednesday reiterated that the real purpose of levying Re1 per litre on extracted ground water was not intended to close down or hurt industrial establishments, but to discourage waste of precious and fast depleting water resources.

The observation came during the hearing of a suo motu case relating to selling of bottled water extracted from underground sources without paying any charge and its quality and fitness for human consumption, as well as a number of review petitions against the court order to impose water cess.

Justice Bandial asked different beverages and bottling companies to come up with a workable solution by finding out answers on how to conserve the precious resources and yet increasing the production at the same time.

The judge made it clear that the levy of Re1 per litre was imposed by the Supreme Court by arriving at a consensus after involving all stakeholders. “We need each others’ cooperation,” Justice Bandial highlighted, while making it clear that the court would ensure that the funds so generated with the imposition of water levy would go straight to developing water projects.

The judge regretted that commercial entities were guzzling water. They recover only 35 per cent of the water extracted after the reverse osmosis process, while the rest go to waste when the same can be recycled.

Justice Bandial says purpose of levying Re1 per litre on ground water is to discourage waste of depleting resources

Justice Bandial feared that Pakistan might run dry by 2025. While citing the example of Lahore, he deplored that the water table in the city had dropped so low that the water quality had been deteriorated. “In few years the entire aquifer in the city will be gone forever, leaving us with nothing.”

During the hearing Prof Dr Mohammad Ahsan Siddiqui, an environmental scientist who was appointed head of a special committee on water, told the court that the committee had issued water bills to 45 different bottling and beverages companies, adding that these bills would help reduce the wastage of water by 40 per cent.

At the outset, representatives of the provincial governments told the court that notifications had been issued and put on enforcement for monitoring and metering and the installation of close circuit cameras on the consumption of water by bottling companies as well as registration of filtration plants.

But the court regretted that confusion had been created by WASA (Water and Sanitation Agency) by issuing notices to certain bottlers which were getting water supplied by the authority by billing Rs1.5 per litre as a result of which certain companies got stay orders from the Lahore High Court.

The court ordered WASA to clarify the issue as well as the order of the apex court before the high court when the matter would be taken up on March 14.

The court appreciated Balochistan for drafting a proper law on the extraction of water which was under the process of enactment by the provincial assembly.

The court asked the provincial governments as well as the Islamabad Capital Territory to take steps for the implementation of its judgement and said that the notification levying the water cess under the local government laws must have bore approval of the competent authority or the provincial government enact separate legislation in this regard.

The court ordered inspection of the filtration plants and existing resources by the Punjab and Sindh governments and installation of laboratories for checking the quality of water.

The court noted that different companies also pointed out that excessive bills had been issued on a presumption basis instead of readings of the metering system. It allowed the industrial units to raise objections to the excessive billing within 15 days of the issuance of bills.

During the hearing, Advocate Khalid Jawed Khan, representing a number of bottling companies, regretted that they had received a bill of Rs60 million for 90 days of water extraction.

He was of the view that instead of levying Re1 per litre on the extracted ground water, a new consensus formula should be worked out.

Published in Dawn, March 8th, 2019