The drive initiated by Ranchi Municipal Corporation (RMC) for making rainwater harvesting technique mandatory for every household has registered a poor response. Additional Municipal Commissioner (ACM), Bidyanand Sharma said that even after issuing warning to the city residents repeatedly, about 80 per cent residents have not yet adopted the technique to conserve water. Not even the individual entity but even at the commercial setups, it is hard to find the arrangement of rain water harvesting technique claimed Sharma.
In an attempt to adopt the concept of rain water harvesting, RMC in 2016 had asked the city residents to take up the system at the earliest looking at the condition of depleting ground water level. The water scarcity problem that aroused in 2016 during the summer season had made the civic body officials to take this rigorous step following the building by-laws clause for all kind of establishments.
“We are not at all satisfied with the public response on rain water harvesting. Unfortunately, not even 80 per cent of the households have willingly adopted the technique. Taking stringent action, from April 1, RMC will send notices to the defaulters,” added Sharma.
Notably, from April 1, the defaulters will be charged 1.5 times the total holding tax as a fine amount. Earlier as well, the municipal corporation had set a one-month deadline for all building owners in the State Capital to put in place mandatory water harvesting structures, failing to which the civic body would charge the penalty amount after the enforcement of new holding tax rates that came into effect from May 1, 2016.
Previously, in the wake of increasing water crisis, the civic body had also decided to set up a few community-level water harvesting structures in areas falling under below poverty line (BPl) category but even after a year, this step is yet to be adopted by RMC seeking the norms under this specific technique.
“The decision of establishment of community water harvesting structures was taken for specific localities only were there was no pipeline connection. In the holding number, it is mandatory for the tax payers to mention that they have the provision of rainwater harvesting technique at their abodes and no one can escape this clause,” Sharma added.
Nevertheless, the assessment is being carried out by the civic body team members. Rainwater harvesting structure is one of the basic components for calculating holding tax. During the RMC board meeting recently, Mayor Asha lakra had mentioned that RMC this year has not given any deadline for constructing the rain water harvesting technique but is vigilant and the officials will inspect the localities soon to check the work in progress.