Where are the rainwater pits?

Many buildings in the city do not have rain water harvesting system despite the authority has made its installation mandatory for all structures with more than 100 square metre built-up area, a resident group has said.

Many buildings in the city do not have rain water harvesting system despite the authority has made its installation mandatory for all structures with more than 100 square metre built-up area, a resident group has said.

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Col S S oberoi, from Mission Gurgaon Development, said: “The orders were passed in this regard by the Central Ground Water Authority as water is depleting at an alarming rate. But the irony is that we failed to execute it properly.”
He said: “Nearly 90% of the buildings do not have rain water harvesting pits.”

According to a resident, authorities sometimes do not even visit the site before issuing the completion certificate. It is the responsibility of contractor to get the system installed but there are very few buildings which have rain water harvesting pits. Huda officials, however, claim that things have changed since 2006 as the department does not issue completion certificates to buildings without rain water harvesting system.

Huda administrator Nitin Yadav said: “Since 2006, we made the rain water harvesting pits mandatory in all buildings and since then we are not issuing the completion certificate to the buildings which do not have rain harvesting pits.”