Hyderabad: Civic bodies' rain water harvesting plans yet to take off

Hyderabad: The awareness campaigns run by the Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board and Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation have not worked on a practical basis. The Water Board’s proposal to reuse the sewerage water and the GHMC’s promise of ensuring rain water harvesting pits remain on paper. Both bodies have also been turning a blind eye to the existing harvesting pits which have been dysfunctional for a while now.

The GHMC has made water harvesting (RHS) structures compulsory for buildings that come up on 100 sq metres and above plot areas. In united AP Government, a few years ago water harvesting structures were mandatory for big buildings. But while the builders showed the space for structure for RHS in their plans, in actuality they did not bother to construct them.

Later, GHMC decided to collect Rs 8 per square feet from the builders at the time when building permission was being sought and take up the responsibility themselves to construct water pits at the common places. However, the corporation has issued as many as 15,777 building permissions during the financial year 2017-18 but could not ensure rain water harvesting pits in all of them.

The corporation officials claimed that due to severe staff crunch, they could not physically inspect the harvesting pits after the buildings were handed over to the societies. The GHMC also said it was the responsibility of the citizens to ensure that harvesting pits were created as it was impossible to inspect every society premise.