Indian Express 07.06.2010
900 houses in 7 yrs, 751 more in 1 yr: rainwater harvesting picks up
Stuti Shukla Tags : water supply Posted: Mon Jun 07 2010, 01:31 hrs
Mumbai: The severe water supply shortage over the past one year has served as a wake-up call: the number of buildings with rainwater harvesting facilities has shot up as never before. Of the 1,651 buildings that have set up such a facility since October 2002, when the BMC made it compulsory for new buildings, 751 did so last year.The 2002 order was for houses on plots 1,000 square metres or larger, and till 2007 only 185 buildings followed it. In June 2007, a government notification tightened the limit to 300 square metres, and the total climbed to 444 till May 2008 and then to 900 till May 2009. The current total includes seven in the island city, 483 in the eastern suburbs and 1,161 in the western suburbs.
The catch is that despite the rise, the buildings represent a fraction of the total built in each of these periods. Last year, 1,528 buildings were given completion certificates (CC) despite the civic body’s announcement that none would be issued to buildings without rainwater harvesting. Sources said many builders show rainwater harvesting plants in their plans but these often remain on paper; the BMC has no unit to monitor thisA senior official of the BMC’s development plan department said despite the recent move against issuing occupation certificates to buildings without rainwater harvesting, builders and owners still flout the rule. “Even after showing the RWH plant on paper and actually installing it, in many cases they do not ensure that the plant works. We don’t have any real monitoring system to ensure the plant is functional,” said the official.
Yet the spurt of green buildings has made BMC officials hopeful. Suprabha Marathe, head of the rainwater harvesting cell, said the number of enquiries too has shot up in the past one year.
“The 15 per cent supply cut has made people realise the need to save water. Since most rainwater runs off and gets wasted, harvesting is the best way to conserve water and use it for non-potable purposes,” Marathe said.
Harvesting in crisis
Number of buildings with rainwater harvesting facilities
185 from 2002-07
259 in 2007-08
456 in 2008-09
751 in 2009-10
1,651 total
