BANGALORE: Three years ago, The Bangalore Water Supply and Sewage Board (BWSSB) introduced the concept of on Rain Water Harvesting (RWH). The issue was discussed at the Assembly and the Council.
After the scare of rainwater harvesting implementation deadline on December 31, 2011, and the successful extension of deadline to March 2012, several building owners are busy building hasty RWH structures. City Express takes a look into the level of RWH implementation in the city.
Bowing Hospital is one of the big and well known hospital in the city, covering 14 hectares of land and serves almost 1000 patients per day. It consumes a good amount of water on everyday basis in the process of treatment of patients, maintaining hygiene of the medical equipment or conducting surgeries.
When City Express contacted the Public Works Department (PWD) Assistant Engineer and the hospital authority and enquired about the work of RWH, contradictory statements were received from both ends. PWD Assistant Engineer, Gowda said, “We are working on the RWH system, we have submitted the estimated budget to the hospital authority. A fund of Rs 86 lakh needs to be sanctioned for RWH. So, once they clears the fund, we will start working on it. The whole installation will take just four months.”
However, Medical Superintendent of Bowring Hospital, H Sureshchandra said, “I am not concerned with any deadline as work is in process.”
He added, “On an average, each patient requires minimum of 300 litres of water. Apart from this, there are plenty of washrooms and maintaining the building requires a lot of water.”
He further added, “We have Effluent Treatment Plants (ETP) planted in the hospital and this is where we get most of the water from.” He defended not adopting RHW in the old buildings, and said, “There is no point in construction of RHW for the old buildings as soon they will be demolished. Moreover, one of the building near the Shivajinagar bus stand already has RWH facility installed.”
However, he mentioned that at least 4 months will be required to finish the work.