Bhubaneswar Development Authority’s rain harvesting rules pay off

BHUBANESWAR: More than 200 structures with rainwater harvesting systems in place have come up here after the Bhubaneswar Development Authority (BDA) had in 2015 made it mandatory for buildings built on a minimum of 300 square metre area to have such facilities.
The BDA refuses to issue occupancy certificate in case an apartment developer or an individual house-owner does not conform to the norm.
The 200 rainwater harvesting structures, mostly in apartments, include those that have come up in areas under the BDA and the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC).While the BDA has jurisdiction over 1,000 square kilometre area, the BMC has control over 165 square kilometre area. The BMC has so far given occupancy certificate to seven apartments with rainwater harvesting structures.
“Since the time BMC set up its own planning cell, which approves building plans, more than 3,000 plans have been given approval. Of them, only seven were of 300 square metre built-up area. Occupancy will not be allowed in buildings that don’t have rain harvesting structures,” Bandita Mohapatra, BMC’s planning officer, said
Rain harvesting structures are those that help store rainwater for re-use in the same building or for other purposes. In 2015, the government decided to introduce rooftop rainwater harvesting system in the urban areas of the state. The decision was taken to ease pressure off the fast-depleting groundwater. “Nearly 40 per cent of the urban water supply is sourced from groundwater,” sources said.
Urban planner Piyush Rout said checks should be carried out to ensure that the rainwater harvesting structures were operational. “Many building developers build the structures to get certificate but there should be a way of checking if they work or not,” he said.