State level
committee to guide RWH schemes
CHENNAI:
The Tamil Nadu government has set up a State-level joint committee headed by
Chief Secretary Lakshmi Pranesh to work out measures and guidelines for
implementing the rain water harvesting scheme (RWHS), which has been
intensified as a people's movement by the government.
The
committee would meet once in three months, to review the implementation of the
scheme and also suggest new policies. District-level coordination committees
to guide and monitor the implementation of RWHS had also been set up which
would meet once in a month.
An
official press release said the State committee would have among others
Secretaries of PWD, Environment and Forests, Housing, Agriculture, Rural
Development, Information and Tourism, Planning and Development and Industries,
PWD Chief Engineer, Director of Central Ground Water Board and Director of
Prasar Bharathi as members. The Secretary of the Municipal Administration and
Water Supply would be its member-organiser.
The
district committees, to be headed by the respective district collectors, would
have Executive Engineers of TWAD, PWD, Agriculture Engineering and Agriculture
besides the district PRO, Chief Educational Officer and Project Officer of the
District Rural Development Agency as its members.
The
release said it would be mandatory that all the new buildings of the
government, government-aided agencies, corporations and cooperatives to have
RWH structure in them. Even those government buildings which function in
rented buildings too should have such provision.
While
in Chennai the Metrowater would be in-charge of providing information on RWHS
to the people, in districts the job has been entrusted to the district
collectors.
The
government has made it clear that the connection for the drinking water supply
and sewerage disposal would be given to those new buildings that have
provisions for RWH. Similarly, the local bodies would not carry out the
property assessment if the new buildings did not have RWH structure. However,
this would not apply to the people Below Poverty Line and living in huts.
The
release said the Tamil Nadu Water Supply and Drainage Board would take steps
for improving ground water table and take steps for letting rain water into
the temple tanks and other water sources.
