KOCHI: The City Corporation has proposed a mega rainwater harvesting programme worth Rs 2 crore to tap the potential for utilising rainwater which can resolve water scarcity to a great extent. Kochi city has a total rooftop surface area of 10 sq km from which a huge quantity of rainwater can be collected and stored. Though the civic body initiated a couple of projects to promote rainwater harvesting in the city, none of them succeeded.
“Though efforts to increase availability of drinking water through new projects are on, it will not be able to meet the increasing water requirement of the city areas. Hence, rainwater harvesting has to be encouraged to meet the rapidly increasing water consumption. The Corporation will implement a rainwater harvesting project worth Rs. 2 crore using the state and Union governments’ funds,” said Deputy Mayor T.J Vinod in the annual Budget speech.
Rainwater harvesting systems will be installed in parks, Corporation offices and government and aided schools within the city limits. Special squads will be formed to identify defunct rainwater harvesting facilities in households, offices and commercial firms and to revive them. Though the civic body announced a rainwater harvesting scheme under the Union government’s AMRUT programme in 2016, it failed to take off. The plan was to implement the facility in 1212 households in the initial phase.
As per a survey of the SCMS Water Institute, of the 90 sq km total area in the city, 10 sq km is the rooftop area which can be used for rooftop rainwater harvesting. As many as 2.5 lakh litres of rainwater can be harvested from 100 sq m which means the 10 sq km rooftop area in Kochi can collect enough rainwater needed for the city.
