Rs. 100-crore Scheme on Rainwater Harvesting.

With the burgeoning urban population putting immense pressure on ground water resources in the State, the Odisha Government has decided to arrest the trend by tapping rain water in cities and towns through rooftop harvesting structures which will help replenish ground water table.

At present, an estimated 40 per cent of urban private water supply is sourced from ground water in Odisha. To reduce the growing pressure, the Water Resources Department has come up with a '100-crore scheme under which Government as well as private buildings will adopt rooftop rainwater harvesting and recharge ground water in urban areas of the State.

The draft scheme has already been submitted to the Finance Department for ratification of the Expenditure Finance Committee. Titled 'Rooftop Rainwater Harvesting and Ground Water Recharge Scheme', the Government plans to bring under its cover 16,955 buildings out of which 550 are Government establishments.

Proposed to be operational from this financial year, the scheme will have a project period of five years during which Rooftop Rainwater Harvesting Systems (RRHS) would be installed in the buildings. The scheme, which would be made available to 103 urban local bodies and two census towns of the State, targets buildings with rooftop area of at least 200 sq metre for mass adoption of the water harvesting structures.

The New Indian Express