KMC was in talks with major builders and associations in the city to make rainwater harvesting mandatory in the new Building Regulations expected to be notified soon. "We may be making rainwater harvesting mandatory for buildings taller than 13 metres", said Bikash Ranjan Bhattachryya, mayor of KMC. KMC was now working on getting the specifications in place.
KMC would float tenders for installation of water meters in the city households to calculate consumption of water by volume within a fortnight, the mayor claimed. KMC had already imposed a per point projection water service charge for households with 20 millimeter (mm) and 25mm ferrule connections and was expecting a revenue of over Rs 4 crore from it in the first year.
The water meters will be further effective in controlling the wastage of water in the households, Bhattacharyya stressed. Talking of wastage the mayor pointed out that nearly 35 per cent of the city's water supply is wasted through either leakages in underground pipelines or household wastage.
The Union minister for urban development S Jaipal Reddy had recently sanctioned the project of building a parallel pipeline alongside the existing Tala-Palta trunk line under the Jawaharlal Nehru Urban Renewal Mission(JNNURM) scheme. The old pipeline had developed innumerable leakages due to wear and tear.
KMC aimed to appoint the Indian Railways arm RITES that specialises in infrastructure and related technologies for laying the pipeline. Around 12 kilometer of the total 24km will be laid in a trenchless way and RITES had the necessary expertise, said Bhattacharyya.
In case of RITES not taking the project up, expressions of interest (EOIs) will be floated for private bidders, he added. After the leakage was blocked, the city's water loss was estimated to come down to around 15 per cent.
The Rs 99 crore 30 MGD water treatment plant project near Dhapa was however stalled due to legal hurdles.
