BWSSB to fix RWH deadline soon

Cauvery water will be supplied only for compliant houses

 Speaking to Deccan Herald, P B Ramamurthy, chairman, BWSSB said he had written a letter to the Urban Development Department to approve the amended bill and fix a deadline for RWH. “Before the bill is passed in the Assembly, an ordinance can be promulgated, which we are trying to push. We want to take up the matter seriously and promote RWH in a big way," he said.

Ramamurthy said many plumbers have already been trained and residents can find their details in the website and consult them on installing RWH.

Once the ordinance is passed, besides issuing a notice, the Board will also be conducting awareness programmes on RWH, he added.

Public consultation

However, members of Citizens Action Forum (CAF) urged BWSSB to have a public consultation rather than enforcing compulsory installation of RWH systems in houses.
BWSSB had earlier given a deadline to the consumers to install the system by May 27, 2010 and had issued two notices that water and sewer connection will be disconnected if RWH was not installed to residents of Jayanagar, Banashankari, Basavanagudi, Malleswaram etc.

In the memorandum, the CAF members stated that many of the government buildings have not installed RWH system. In fact many BWSSB employees' houses are yet to adopt the system, they said.

Ravindranath Guru, secretary of CAF said BBMP bylaws have incorporated RWH to sanction plans for a 30X40 site house. Though the building plan has the provision, there was no inspection done by any civic agency to check if RWH is installed after the construction.

Reacting to the allegation, Ramamurthy said all government buildings are slowly adopting RWH.

“BWSSB is not threatening any resident to install RWH. We are in the process of encouraging them to store rainwater. BWSSB engineers will approve Cauvery water connection only after they RWH system is inspected," the chairman added.