BANGALORE: Eager to escape disconnection of water supply by BWSSB, people are rushing to install rain water harvesting (RWH) at their buildings. The city water board had earlier declared December 31 as the deadline, and was set to disconnect services. However, with the extension on deadline, people have now heaved a sigh of relief. Out of 58,000 buildings (measuring 40 ft x 60 ft), 33,579 buildings have already installed RWH. That is about 60 per cent of the buildings having RWH and about 948 were installed in the last one week at an average of about 150 installations per day. On the other hand, J P Nagar Dollars Residents’ Association has approached the committee constituted for Formulation of RWH Regulation & Guidelines requesting them to exempt the area from installing RWH. Gunda Bhat, joint secretary of the association told Express that “J P Nagar is one of the low-lying areas. Also, RWH rejuvenates the groundwater level by allowing the rain water to percolate in to the ground. But in our area, technical experts have found that the groundwater table is very high.”The association has about 300 independent houses. Bhat also pointed out that water sprints when they tried to dig out a pit for RWH and said that they cannot dig any pits for collection of rain water. Speaking to Express, Kemparamaiah, chairman of the committee said, “We have powers to grant exemption. But that will be granted for inevitable cases only after verification and experts’ approval.” Senior fellow at Karnataka State Council for Science and Technology, A R Shiva Kumar, stated that it was not a suggestible move to seek exemption, and said, “Apart from recharging groundwater level, rain water can be can be used for daily chores.”
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