News: Water mafia tentacles choke supply in Gurugram-14-06-2022
From villagers who supply water to city residents for a nominal fee to gangs fighting over jurisdiction, the ownership of private water tankers in Gurugram has radically changed in the past two decades
About 35 years ago, when Gurugram was still expanding from a dusty village to a booming metropolis, the Haryana Urban Development Authority (Huda), now Haryana Shahari Vikas Pradhikaran (HSVP), started scrambling to keep up with the increasing demand in infrastructure—especially that of water. In a city that has historically been short of water, the accelerated expansion hit the availability of water--hard.
So as construction began in new sectors 30 years ago, some enterprising villagers started a water supply business.
According to Virender Singh, who runs an illegal water business and has been arrested twice for damaging Gurugram Metropolitan Development Authority (GMDA) pipelines and assaulting other water tanker drivers, they would charge a nominal amount to make ends meet.
“They would ask their friends from different villages to supply water in their area, but as the demand increased, so did the money. Soon, tiffs started and no one wanted to share the business anymore,” he said.
Aakash Yadav, a supplier who has over a dozen cases against him, said that one of the reasons for the hike in demand was the increase in the number of constructions, following which several people started investing in tankers. “This is one of the most lucrative businesses in the city. An investment of just about ₹20,000 would get you over ₹2 lakh even 20 years ago. We have bought land, cars and built houses with the money we earned. But as more people enter this business thanks to the growing competition over the past 10 years, we have had to ensure our jurisdiction is safe,” he said, adding he does not let anyone else enter his jurisdiction.
Twenty years ago, criminal gangs led by Gurugram’s notorious gangsters joined the illegal water supply business–making it even more difficult for the authorities to rein in the mafia–after they realised that small investments could get them huge returns. As soon as developers started buying land in developing sectors, the mafia started approaching them to supply water there.
While civic agencies in the city lay new pipelines and develop infrastructure to supply water to new and developing sectors, private water tanker suppliers continue to make up for the deficient supply during peak summers. However, they hardly play fair. Whenever they get a chance, they damage newly laid pipelines to ensure shortage-hit residents call them for water.
Several officials of GMDA and Municipal Corporation of Gurugram (MCG) admit that while the stranglehold of private water suppliers has reduced because GMDA has been developing new infrastructure, they still manage to create obstructions and keep their lucrative business going. In the meantime, others take advantage of the fact that many areas are still out of the reach of water.
For the last six or seven years, private tankers have been the main source of water supply in most sectors from 58 to 115 because civic agencies did not prepare the infrastructure despite developers assuring residents of water and power through the rural supply network of the government, residents of developing sectors along the Dwarka Expressway say.
To be sure, there are private tankers hired by government agencies to supply water in hard-to-reach areas, but all others are illegal and run by the mafia .
Over 100 residential areas in the city depend on water tankers during the summer and locals say they pay between ₹1,700 and ₹2,000 for each tanker every day.
According to police officers investigating several cases of damage to government water pipelines, it has emerged that gangs backed by Tota, Akash Yadav, Gujjar, Kaushal and others–which usually deal with drugs, extortion, sale of illegal liquor, abduction, robbery, loot and murder–are now also involved in digging illegal borewells and supplying water to several colonies.
Police said over 60 cases have been registered against the gangs involved in illegal water supply, who have assaulted at least 20 people who tried to supply water in their jurisdictions in the last one year.
Preet Pal Sangwan, assistant commissioner of police (crime), said, “There are over 10 gangs that run the illegal water supply and are intolerant of newcomers to the business. They often resort to violence. They not only threaten newcomers but have assaulted over 20 people who tried to supply water in these areas, in the last few months,” he said.
Authorities said that despite GMDA laying water pipelines in most new sectors in the last three years, there are multiple incidents of water tanker operators damaging the pipelines to ensure residents remain dependent on them.
On April 23, a newly laid water pipeline for sectors 111 to 115, which was inaugurated by chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar a month earlier, was found damaged near Bajghera by Gurugram Metropolitan Development Authority (GMDA) officials, who said the perpetrators used earth-moving machines to do so.
Yashesh Yadav, president of Dwarka Expressway Welfare Association, said that these gang members damage pipelines and make sure that commercial as well as residential societies continue to depend on them.
“Every year, we have to buy water from tankers and if someone refuses or tries to file a complaint against them, they threaten to kill them and their families. It is becoming extremely unsafe to deal with them. Every year, several cases of attempts to murder are registered against gang members who try to kill their rivals or any newcomer,” he said.
Suresh Kohli, a resident of Dwarka Expressway who is constructing a commercial building, said that he is shelling out a lot of money for water tankers, but has no other option but to depend on the mafia. “When I tried to stop buy water from them, they assaulted my guard, damaged our water storage tanks, and threatened our lives,” he said, adding that he did not file a complaint with the police out of fear.
According to the people involved in the business, hundreds of illegal water borewells have come up in city in the last 10 years because of the increasing demand for water, especially during the summer.
Illegal water extraction is rampant in Ullawas village, Sector 61, Palam Vihar, Pataudi, Badshahpur, Kadipur, developing sectors located along the Dwarka Expressway, including sectors 104, 109 and 111, the police said.
The mafia has dug illegal borewells in their villages to extract water, leading to a diminishing groundwater table. While police say they have been taking action against such persons and sealed over 100 borewells, several are still in operation.
“The mafia has a lot of muscle power. The developers and people constructing houses rely on them for water tankers. They do not make their office addresses public and pinning them down is not easy for anyone who is not a part of the trade,” said Sangwan.
Sangwan said that there are several instances of gangs fighting each other for control over a particular area.
Last January, the members of one of the gangs had shot at the sarpanch of Babupur village -- the fallout of rivalry over the illegal water business in new sectors along Dwarka Expressway. Preliminary investigation had revealed that the suspects had been threatening Yogesh Yadav (50), who runs a construction and illegal water tanker business since 2015, to pay extortion money for the last two years, police said. The perpetrators were later arrested.
“Residents in the new developing sectors largely depend on private tankers for their daily needs. The sarpanch had filed a complaint at the Bajghera police station, highlighting a threat to his life by his rivals in the water business,” he said.
Pradeep Kumar, an advisor to the GMDA who recently retired as its chief engineer, said that the authority faced similar problems in other sectors as well but managed to neutralise the challenges posed by water tanker operators by getting as many of them arrested as it could.
However, police say, most such businesses are now being run by the rest of the gangs.
“They want to continue the lucrative business of water supply but such illegal actions will not be allowed,” Kumar said, commenting on the Bajghera incident which happened on January 22.
