‘Maintenance biggest issue in water harvesting’

NEW DELHI: Maintenance of storage pits and pipes are the biggest roadblocks in implementing rain water harvesting in the city, Delhi water minister Rajendra Gautam has said.

Delhi gets an average of 611mm of rain in a year and even if part of it is tapped, some pressure will be off the Delhi Jal Board to supply water to a vast majority of parched Delhiites.

According to the water utility, even though over 900 million gallons water is treated in the city every day, 765 MGD reaches the people because of leakage. With the total water demand of the city surpassing 1,100 MGD, the demand-supply gap is getting wider.

“Water conservation is the only way. People are doing it but the numbers are not as good as we expect. One big issue is the system turning defunct. You need to clean the pits and the pipes regularly to keep it functional. When you buy a car, you get it serviced regularly. The same thing with the infrastructure of rain water harvesting,” Gautam told Hindustan Times.

The Delhi Jal Board has already made it mandatory for all new buildings, built on an area of more than 100 square metres and above or which discharge above 10,000 litres of water, to install rainwater harvesting systems.