Chadha bats for max rainwater harvesting at water conference

New Delhi: Delhi Jal Board Vice-Chairperson Raghav Chadha on Tuesday said that the utility board had already chalked out an ambitious plan to deal with Delhi's water crises and that it was in the process of developing a "solid blueprint" for water conservation. Chadha's comments came while he was speaking at a conference organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry on "Augmentation of Water Supply, Safety & Security".

Chadha said that the DJB strives to provide safe and adequate drinking water supply to people living in Delhi and collect and treat generated sewage to the permissible standards before disposal or reuse. "DJB follows a multi-dimensional approach in terms of perspective planning and project implementation with respect to the water and sewerage sector," Chadha said.

Further, he also spoke of the need for water augmentation and how the DJB can extract groundwater to Ranney wells in Burari and Wazirabad areas where the groundwater level is high but contamination can be removed (iron) with new technology and the utilised space can be recharged by treated water thereby promoting the reuse of treated water.

As for rainwater harvesting, Chadha said that Delhi's situation was getting worse. "Rainwater Harvesting is more than necessary in Delhi as the water table is going low and we can't afford to be slow. It's

high time carrot and stick policy needs to be adopted so that all buildings, wherever feasible should have RWH Structures," he said.

The DJB Vice-Chairperson also mentioned that efforts are on to lower Non-Revenue Water (NRW) below 15 percent, rationalise the distribution, and ensure consistent water supply in the command areas of the Water Treatment Plants.