Rainwater Harvesting A Must to get Building Clearance in Mumbai
In the wake of water level in the state’s rivers going down the water supply department soon to hold a meeting with chief minister and plans a proposal to ensure that building cleraneance is given to new buildings in Mumbai only if it has rainwater harvesting facilities.
Rainwater harvesting is one of the major steps taken to conserve water and use it for innumerable purposes. The water from rainwater harvesting is used for purposes like irrigation, livestock raring, watering plan and other purposes. Rainwater harvesting is practised in order to supplement the sub-soil water level and increase the urban greenery.
Rainwater harvesting is a simple technique of accumulating rainwater by channelizing the flow of the water into tanks, underground reservoirs and pits. Various rivers in the state are witnessing a lower water level and so are the lakes. As most of the citizens use water in a haphazard way, the government has taken an initiative to make it mandatory that no new building will be permitted to get a clearance from the civic bodies unless they do not adopt rainwater harvesting.
More than 10% of the water supplied by the BMC (Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation) is used for innumerable purposes which also include the non-potable ones. In such cases the BMC has implied the rule that the water acquired from rainwater harvesting should be used for all these purposes rather than the clean water.
According to recent BMC data, even after offering incentives for installing rainwater harvesting in Mumbai properties, around 4,000 buildings still to install. According to source, the rule to be made mandatory for every housing complex in the city. The Mumbai water supply department will move a proposal to ensure Installing RWH to get Building Clearance.
The concept of rainwater harvesting was first initiated by the BMC in 2002 where they made it mandatory that every building with a required amount of plot measurement should have a water plant. Apparently most of them did not follow the rule even when the government offered incentives for them to implement water plants.
The BMC is strictly working towards implementing the rule and making the citizens obey and in turn if the rule is not followed the civic officials and the developer will be held responsible.
Currently, the city gets water from six lakes.
Various experts in the field believe that rain water harvesting can play an important role in avoiding floods. Apart from this RWH (Rain water harvesting) will also improve ecology and solves the problem of water shortage. Incidentally, many cities lack tanks and other rainwater harvesting mechanisms in order to carry on the activity. If the citizens of Mumbai strictly follow the RWH method they can cater their water needs of up to about 50%.
Currently the financial capital of India has about 200 housing societies with the RWH method. Although old societies are reluctant to adopt this method. The RWH projects are established in various places of Mumbai like a sports complex, a national park, transport depot, an electric supply and more. One of the main reasons for people not adopting the method is because of the civic body’s failure to advocate measures to popularise the initiative.
Various countries like Tokyo and others have implemented this technique after they underwent a water scarcity problem post a flood. Now, any home without a RWH method will have to pay the tax. Cities like Chennai and others have adopted the rainwater harvesting techniques.
Also read:
BWSSB watch on RWH installation in Bangalore
