Hyderabad: In a city like Hyderabad which has an annual rainfall of around 600-800mm, a 100 sq metres catchment area has an annual water harvesting potential of around 51,000 litre.
This is the amount of water that is going untapped though rainwater harvesting is mandatory for all buildings with an area of 300 sq. metres or more. Very few commercial spaces, residential complexes or even government offices implement the rule.
Only 2 per cent to 3 per cent of buildings have rainwater harvesting pits. In Malkajgiri, out of 1.8 lakh houses, fewer than 2,000 have have rainwater harvesting pits.
“In residential areas, the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) used to reimburse 70 per cent of the amount spent on building a rainwater harvesting system. For public spaces, 50 per cent was reimbursed,” said B.T. Srinivas, president of the resident welfare association of Malkajgiri.
“This year, however, we were told that there is no budget allocation,” Mr Srinivas added.
Experts on the subject of rainwater harvesting meanwhile said that not only is the approach of government unyielding, the have rainwater harvesting pit models that were encouraged didn’t suit the terrain.
“For the sake of projecting a huge number, have rainwater harvesting pits were dug with enthusiasm in the last one decade. However, most of them have now turned into garbage pits due to the unscientific methodology,” said Subash Reddy, director, SMARAN, an organisation working for soil and water conservation and experts in rainwater harvesting pits.
Explaining why the model encouraged by the government fails, the chief of SMARAN said that certain fine tunings were missing. There are no silt traps in the rainwater harvesting pits and the run-off garbage gets stuck and over time, they become dump yards.
There are several factors that need to be taken care of while building an rainwater harvesting pit,” Mr Reddy added.
