Half the houses in the city have not installed rainwater harvesting systems after the specific regulation from Bangalore Water Sewage Supply Board (BWSSB).
Reported By: Sumaya Junaid Ahmed
Bangalore, 29th August 2019, 10:00PM
A recent data states that 64,300 houses in Bangalore have not yet installed rainwater structure. This accounts more than 50%.
Under section 72A act of rainwater harvesting (amendment) (2015) states that any owner or occupier of a residential building fails to provide rain water harvesting structure in building, shall be levied an additional charge of fifty percent of the total water and sanitary bill, till the rain water harvesting structure is provided in building. Where as if a non- residential owner or an occupier fails to provide rain water harvesting structure a penalty of hundred percent will be charged of total water and sanitary bill.
Owners say that they have not installed rainwater harvesting structure because it’s expensive and the cost of maintenance is high. A resident living in Jayanagar, Shruti said “I wasn’t aware of rainwater harvesting system but I also figured out that there must be some cost of maintenance and we don’t really know when there is going to rain, so its little unpredictable and also many houses may space issue and all of that.”
People of Bangalore have to install rainwater harvesting systems because it reduces the usage of Cauvery water because Cauvery water is taken from 100kms and then filtered in for four stages which requires huge amount of electricity.
The PRO of BWSSB said “The BWSSB made an amendment regarding rainwater harvesting in 2009 August, so far nearly one lakh twenty three thousand household have been implemented rainwater harvesting. And we are collecting fine from 64,300 households”.
The city corporation is working on creating awareness about the installation and of these systems
.
The Executive Engineer of rainwater harvesting said, “We are inviting schools collages and other institution for an educational trip to our Theme Park for awareness and we are glad that we are getting a good response. Many people have installed rainwater harvesting structure after visiting Theme Park.”
Environmentalists stress on the importance of building water harvesting systems. The expert said, “People are not installing rainwater harvesting system in Bangalore because they are getting enough amount of Cauvery water and people are ready to pay fine but not to install rainwater harvesting system.”
But the moot point is- recent flood in state the city may not face water crises till coming summer but the long term solution to tackle water crisis in Bangalore is to install rainwater harvesting system.
