45,000 streets in Chennai to have rainwater harvesting facility: Corpn

Chennai Corporation Commissioner G Prakash at a meeting held here on Saturday with regard to finding ways to harvest rainwater without letting them go to waste down drains, sought Corporation engineers to identify suitable spots in every street in the city to create these structures.

“Officials should identify the spots and create rainwater harvesting structures in a way that it does not disturb residents and vehicle movement. The project should be completed before the onset of monsoon in Tamil Nadu,” Prakash said in the meeting.

Civic officials have inspected more than 2.12 lakh buildings across the city and found more than 1.15 lakh buildings with functional rainwater harvesting structures. However, 62,151 buildings do not possess the facility while structures in 34,535 buildings require minor repair.

“Officials are providing suggestions to the building owners on creating rainwater harvesting and their importance,” a Chennai Corporation press release said.

The civic body has constituted 200 teams, each for a ward, to inspect buildings across the city. The teams have been directed to identify buildings that lack rainwater harvesting structures and implore owners to build them. The target for each team is to create 1,000 new such structures before the onset of northeast monsoon. The teams comprise officials from the Chennai Corporation and Chennai Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board (Metrowater).

The civic body has also identified 188 community wells in a disused state during the inspections and has decided to retrieve them. Meanwhile, to keep track of the buildings with such structures, the teams have been affixing coloured stickers on the gates of buildings that have been inspected. “While inspecting the buildings, official teams should affix blue colour stickers if they find functional rainwater harvesting structures existing already. In the case of new rainwater harvesting structures created, the teams will affix green stickers,” Prakash said.