Packaged water units call off strike

A Shakespeare, founder of Greater Tamil Nadu Packaged Drinking Water Manufacturing Units Association, said that the strike was called off and most of the water units had started functioning from Wednesday evening.

The strike was announced after the Madras High Court issued an order to ban the extraction of groundwater. The court also had directed the State government to seal water units that were extracting groundwater without NOC from the Public Works Department.

On Wednesday, the court instructed the government to issue and renew licenses to the water units based on a government order issued in 2014.

“We demand the government issue NOC and license for all the packaged drinking water units in the State and allow extraction of groundwater for drinking water,” V Murali, another founder of Greater Tamil Nadu Packaged Drinking Water Manufacturing Units Association, said.

Meanwhile, the Madras High Court directed Advocate General Vijay Narayan to place before the court information and policy decision regarding whether groundwater drawn by various industries, including the water packaging units, have been charged by the State based on water flow meter.

The bench also sought to know whether the government intends to bring about a slab system of charges for different areas recording the quantity of water drawn by them and the category of the area in which such water withdrawal unit is located.

As per the report submitted by the government, out of the 261 water packaging units in the State, 116 had applied for renewal, NOC was cancelled for 132 units and 13 units were closed. Out of the 132 units set to be closed, 124 were sealed, 3 had sought for cancellation of NOC and 5 are yet to be closed.

Apart from 261 units, the district administration identified 552 more illegal extracting units and sealed them.