Vijayawada: Rain parks to harvest water, beautify roads

Vijayawada: Rain parks would be built in Vijayawada city to not only help make the city appear more attractive, but to also harvest rainwater, revealed municipal commissioner V. Prasanna Venkatesh on Saturday.

He told the media that several development activities were proposed and top priority would be given to rainwater harvesting, hence the rain parks.

Explaining the concept of the rain gardens project, Mr Venkatesh stated that the civic body planned to build rainwater harvesting structures with greenery called rain gardens.  He said that wherever roads are widened and the roadside vacant, the civic body would develop the proposed rain gardens. 

These rain gardens would be constructed with sand and stones in the centre. The civic body would dig trenches about one to 1.5 metres deep. These trenches would be filled with uneven soil and saplings planted in them. Such structures will act as rainwater harvesting pits and, coupled with the attractively set stones and sandy surface, would look attractive and in no way resemble storm water drains, Mr Venkatesh said.

The excess water can be turned into storm water drains, he said. 

This project, once implemented, will recharge the groundwater, he opined. 

“Whatever water flows on both sides of the roads will enter through the mesh installed at the rain gardens. It will appear to be greenery planted all along and will serve as rainwater harvesting pits.  We will develop such gardens across the city after discussing the concept with the higher officials for funding,” Mr Ventakesh said.

He said that the civic body proposed to develop rain gardens with interlocking rails to enable maintenance workers access them easily and they will also be cost-efficient so that there is no loss if any underground works are to be taken up.

Mr Venkatesh said that at place where there are no trees available, they would set up benches in front of the rain gardens that will come in handy for people looking to take a break.

Responding to a question, he said that the rain garden development concept was in its initial stage and hence it would be difficult to even give an estimated cost of the project.

“People are letting out sewage into the stormwater drains. People often fail to distinguish between the stormwater drains and sewage drains. Citizens must realise that storm water drains are for rainwater.  Only 15 to 20 per cent households in the city are connected to the underground drainage system and we have to connect nearly 80 per cent of the households,” the civic body chief said.

“Due to pending works on shifting of electricity poles, road widening and shortage of sand, work on storm water drains has fallen behind schedule. We are going to talk to APIIC higher officials to hand over or outsource the sanitation works by collecting charges in Autonagar to overcome the drain water stagnated problems,” said  Mr Venkatesh.

He said that they planned to develop sewage treatment plants to overcome the problem of sewage being let into Bandar, Eluru, Ryves and Budameru canals.  

Mr Venkatesh informed that they plan to set up a sewage treatment plant at Bhavanipuram.