Step out and see if your compound wall has a blue or a green sticker. If you have one, it means the building has installed a rainwater harvesting (RWH) structure.
After inspecting 1.4 independent houses and apartment complexes – and finding 41,000 of them don’t have RWH structures, the city corporation has started colour-coding buildings to demarcate the complaint ones from the others. So far, corporation workers have pasted only blue stickers, outside buildings that were found to have harvesting systems.
Those which install the structure after the recent inspections will be given green stickers. “This will help us identify the ones with old rainwater structure and new ones. So far we haven’t given any colour to those non-complying buildings. We will campaign to get them on board,” said a corporation official. The drive began on Saturday.
“We have a target of making two lakh homes RWH-complaint. The colour coding will help us assess the progress and achieve the goal. To those who don’t have RWH, we will give technical advice and use residents associations to spread awareness,” the official said.
It has been a month since the city corporation announced 200 ward-level committees, each with a target of setting up RWH structures in 1,000 homes by the end of October. According to the civic body, there are 12.5 lakh buildings (residential and commercial) in the city and the residential buildings will be the ward committees’ immediate target.
Each ward committee comprises assistant engineers and joint engineers from the city corporation and Metrowater, a corporation tax collector and a sanitary inspector. Deputy commissioners and regional deputy commissioners of the corporation will oversee the functioning of the committee.
So far, 1,42,396 buildings have been surveyed by the ward teams, of which 77,975 were found to have functional RWH structures. The survey found 23,146 buildings have RWH structures that are poorly maintained and need refurbishment, while 41,275 do not have RWH structures installed.
Municipal administration and water supply minister S P Velumani issued a statement three days ago appealing to all citizens to install RWH structures at their homes. Apart from conducting the RWH drive, the civic body has identified 118 unused community wells across the city to be rejuvenated.
