The first IPL match ‘was played in Mumbai on April 9, and the Wankhede Stadium got 22,000 million litres of water as scheduled from the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation.
A division bench of Justice V.M. Kanade and Justice M.S. Karnik had earlier refused to stay the match while hearing a PIL filed by two Hyderabad NGOs, Loksatta Movement and Foundation of Democratic Reforms, seeking to shift the IPL matches out of Maharashtra in view of the acute shortage of water and an expected huge amount of water to be wasted during the matches.
DC Take
Not for nothing it is said that the next war will be fought over water. The tell-tale signs are already here. Every major city today is facing a water crisis. The government’s water policy, if there is one, has clearly failed. It is the government’s duty to provide potable water to one and all.
Year after year, promises are made but schemes remain non-starters. Today, the things have come to such a pass that a court has to tell a government to choose between its people or hosting a cricket match. Come what may, criminal waste of water, in all spheres of life, has to be avoided at any cost.
