'Fin aid up to Rs 50K for Delhiites to install rainwater harvesting systems'

New Delhi: The Delhi government will provide financial assistance up to Rs 50,000 to install rooftop Rainwater Harvesting (RWH) systems across houses in the Capital along with a rebate of 10 per cent on water bills to the people, the government announced on Monday.

The government has extended the last date for implementing the rainwater harvesting provisions up to December 31, 2021.

The Capital's Water Minister Satyendar Jain convened a meeting with the officials and took stock of the progress of the work of installation of Rooftop Rainwater Harvesting Systems.

The Delhi Jal Board (DJB) certification which was earlier required is no longer needed for rainwater harvesting systems and now people can take adequacy certificate from architects registered with the Council of Architecture and get the system installed. To implement RWH on the grassroots levels, the DJB has made guidelines mandating owners of existing and new properties measuring 100 square metres and above to install RWH structures.

The state government has relaxed the compliance norms wherein people can get adequacy certificates for installing the RWH system from architects registered with the Council of Architecture instead of the Delhi Jal Board, only the guidelines issued by the DJB have to be followed, the government said in a statement.

In a bid to increase the groundwater levels and efficiently utilise the rainwater, the State government has adopted several measures like the adoption of the Dungarpur model of RWH in Rajasthan. This model is also known as the INLINE rainwater harvesting system which is cost effective.

"This model uses innovative techniques and is centred on routing the rainwater directly to a bore well, instead of a regular rainwater-harvesting pit," Jain said.

In this system, the rainwater gets filtered within the pipe, removing any need for an additional filter system and harvesting the pit.

"The reason for this system to be cost-effective is that it does not require a heavy installation set-up. While conventional RWH system set-up requires Rs 75,000 to Rs 1 lakh, the INLINE Rainwater Harvesting System can be set up at a cost as little as Rs 16,000," the Minister added.