Kejriwal emphasises on effective implementation of rainwater harvesting

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Thursday emphasised the urgent need for rain water harvesting in Delhi to reduce the dependency on neighbouring states for its water needs.

“I hope the workshop will come up with a concrete workable policy document to implement rainwater harvesting in an effective way,” said Kejriwal while speaking in a workshop organised by the Delhi Jal Board in association with the Delhi Dialogue Commission for deliberation on water harvesting policy.

During the workshop, presentations were made by Sekhar Raghvan, Rain Centre Chennai, Vasanth Kumar and Viraj Tyagi of the Delhi Dialogue Commission. Raghvan shared the success stories from his Chennai experience while Vasanth Kumar and Viraj Tyagi presented some initial recommendations to promote implementation of rainwater harvesting in Delhi. It was decided at the workshop that rainwater harvesting requires a two-pronged approach at micro and macro levels. A combination of government push through new regulations, rules, enforcement and pull created by volunteers and citizens through ‘Jal Swaraj’ initiatives at local levels can lead to physical and sustained changes.

Kapil Mishra, Delhi’s Minister for Water, who is also the chairperson of the DJB, stressed on the need to implement rainwater harvesting in an expedient manner to prevent water logging. “DJB is also looking at a wider publicity which is needed for public awareness to enable the community at large to participate in rainwater harvesting programmes,” said Mishra. Speaking on the occasion, Ashish Khetan, vice-chairman, DDC said: “The present regulation on rainwater harvesting needs to be simplified and made easier for the citizens of Delhi to adopt.” The focus of this workshop was to deliberate upon and discuss issues related to rainwater harvesting to ensure adoption of rainwater harvesting in all the areas of the city where the water table has gone down.