The Pioneer 09.11.2010
City admn strives to meet residents’ water needsNishu Mahajan | Chandigarh
To meet the ever-increasing water shortage in the city, the administration is making efforts to ensure installation of the rainwater harvesting system in all houses and commercial complexes spread over one canal by December this year.
"Certainly, the rainwater harvesting system is an effective measure to ensure the long-term sustainability of water sources for the city," said UT Finance-cum-Urban Planning Secretary Sanjay Kumar while talking to The Pioneer.
"The administration has already directed all the residential and commercial to ensure 100 per cent compliance to the orders of the administration and the authorities are making all out efforts to install the system in several Government buildings by the end of this year," he added.
Chandigarh is a rapidly growing city and it is also estimated that by 2025, water demand in the city will be almost 800 MLD (million litre per day) and increase of 58 per cent over the 2011 demand of 494.25 MLD.
Total demand for nearly 12.95 lakh population of the city is nearly 452.22 MLD and there is a gap of over 55 MLD in the demand and supply of water. With almost one-third of the total area of the city under green cover, Chandigarh also needs more water for horticulture purposes.
The ‘City Beautiful’ with 114 sq km, assuming a co-efficient of 50 per cent and the average annual rainfall of 1059.3 mm has the rainwater harvesting potential of nearly 13241.25 million gallons or 36.28 MGD. The system would go a long way to rein in the increasing water shortage as the system would provide more quantity of the water, which is pumped out of aquifers.
Besides directing the residential and commercial complex of a canal and above to install the system, the administration has also appealed to the owners of small plots in the city to voluntarily contribute to the cause by installing the system so as to replenish the city's water table.
So far, the rainwater harvesting system has been installed at the UT Guest House in Sector-6, State Judicial Academy, Entrepreneurship Development Centre (EDC) at IT Park, Government College for Girls at Sector-11 etc.
The work is also under progress in other Government buildings namely Punjab and Haryana High Court, Government Colleges etc. UT Finance Secretary also said: "To meet the increasing demand of water would be a challenge for the city in the nearing future and the system will be valuable to restore the gap between water demand and supply."
"All the existing buildings of one canal and above in the city have to install the system till December this year, otherwise the defaulters would be liable for strict action," he added.
Meanwhile, Pradip Mehra, Adviser to the UT Administrator on Monday also convened a meeting to review the status of rainwater harvesting project. Sources said that he had also directed the UT senior officials to ensure that the city residents fully complied with the orders of the UT Administration to install the system by December 2010. He has directed to include more Government buildings under the unique initiative.
