A spacious theme park designed to popularise rainwater harvesting (RWH) by BWSSB has been drawing poor response from the people, going by the statistics of the last three years.
The Sir M Visvesvaraya rainwater harvesting theme park - located in the southern part of the city on 40th cross, 5th block, Jayanagar - has been a silent crusader on how to conserve water. The park spread over one acre is a one-stop destination to understand the use and installation of RWH in individual houses and apartments. However, the park barely finds satisfactory footfalls, except that of students.
Between March 2011 and October 2015, the park received just 24,409 visitors. Out of this, the major share (15,638) are students from 217 schools and 90 colleges, who visited the park as part of educational trips. The number of people who visited the park remains relatively less at roughly 35 per cent, show official records. In October, there were 270 visitors and 349 visitors in September, thanks to the educational tours.
The first-of-its-kind park, a recipient of the National Urban Water Award in 2012, demonstrates 26 working models of RWH and groundwater recharge with special focus on water conservation. The full-time guide employed in the theme park educates visitors on RWH, water-collecting systems, filtration and storage systems and groundwater recharge methods. Besides, visitors get to watch a documentary on water conservation at the information centre.
There is an exclusive lecture by experts every Friday between 11 am to 1 pm. Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays have been mainly allotted for schools and colleges. The park, open for public from 10 am to 6 pm, is closed on second Saturdays and government holidays.
While appreciating BWSSB’s initiative to conserve water, N S Mukund, president, Citizen Action Forum, asked the Board to popularise the park so that more people visit there.
Regarding the poor response, a senior official of BWSSB told Deccan Herald that the department planned to attract more visitors.
“We have plans to invite members of residents’ welfare associations in the City. Through them, we hope to reach people all over the City,” he said.
They plan to include a section on sewage treatment system in the park on reuse of waste water for secondary purposes, the official said.
Published 11 November 2015, 20:50 IST