High Court calls for ‘aggressive measures’ to tackle Gurugram water crisis

Examining the material on record, it pointed to a stark urban paradox: while Gurugram reels from acute potable water shortages and shrinking subsoil reserves, intense monsoon showers consistently lead to paralysing deluge in urban areas that authorities fail to harness.

The HC noted that indiscriminate extraction through private borewells over several decades has triggered a steep drop in the groundwater table across municipal limits. Concurrently, natural catchment systems have collapsed.

“Further, the existing natural water bodies have substantially diminished, while the channels that sustained these water bodies remain largely blocked,” the bench said.

It observed that while Gurugram witnesses severe waterlogging every monsoon, the accumulated runoff is not being channelled into replenishing the underground aquifers. The judges raised concerns regarding the inadequate treatment and reuse of wastewater, pointing out that sewage treatment plants are not being operated to their optimum capacity to offset freshwater demand.

The HC directed that the Chief Engineer of Municipal Corporation of Gurugram (MCG), Gurugram deputy commissioner, officers in-charge of Haryana Shehri Vikas Pradhikaran as well as officials of Gurugram Metropolitan Development Authority to appear before it via videoconferencing on October 1, the next date of hearing.

The proceedings stem from a long-pending bunch of writ petitions, filed by Sunil Singh, alongside the Qutab Enclave Residents’ Welfare Association and others.

The litigation, spanning nearly two decades, originally challenged unchecked construction and commercial expansion across sectors developed by private colonisers, including DLF City, without commensurate environmental clearances, sewage networks, or sustainable water supply mechanisms. The petitioners had argued that rapid real estate development was being carried out in violation of environmental norms, driving massive illegal extraction of subsoil groundwater through unmetered tubewells.

Over the years, the HC had declined multiple pleas to transfer the litigation to the National Green Tribunal, retaining continuous supervisory jurisdiction to monitor compliance.

The bench had in August called upon the Central Ground Water Authority, under the Union Ministry of Water Resources, to submit a comprehensive affidavit assessing the current depletion rates and water tables within Gurugram’s municipal boundaries.

Earlier this month, the Haryana Human Rights Commission (HHRC) had initiated suo motu proceedings following heavy rain on August 24 that submerged arterial stretches, stranded school buses, and caused a major road cave-in near IFFCO Chowk.

In an order passed on September 8, the HHRC said the seasonal chaos is an institutional lapse attributable to neglect and lack of preventive measures, and called for a thorough technical audit apart from GIS-based mapping to clear encroachments choke-holding natural storm drains and child-commuter safety protocols during inundations.