Mayor urged to curb water wastage

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, June 11

A delegation of the Bharat Vikas Parishad, Amritsar Central, led by its president Prof HS Walia, had a meeting with Mayor Bakshi Ram Arora to express concern over the alarming decline in the water table of the city and its serious long term implications.

The delegation also discussed ways and means to curb the over exploitation of the natural resource. Prof Walia hammered on the need to adopt effective measures to check the fast depleting water reserves. He added that ground water balance of most of the blocks falling in Amritsar had been over exploited over the years and consequently water table had been going down by over 0.50 meters on an average in the last few years. It was also emphasised that there should be strict enforcement of the laws and by-laws of Municipal Corporation to reduce the wastage of water.

The suggestions of the delegation included strict enforcement of laws/by-laws relating to rainwater harvesting, devising some mechanism to recycle, recover and conserve thousand of liters of water being wasted while washing vehicles, automobiles at the service stations, mandatory provision to install rainwater harvesting system at the sites of elevated roads, over bridges among other measures.

The Mayor said that despite the mandatory provision to charge Rs 20,000 as refundable security from residential units and Rs 50,000 from commercial units with the incentive to get back the security after showing proof of maintaining the rainwater harvesting system, people prefer to forego the security instead of installing the system.

The Mayor assured to constitute a committee of experts to recommend the possible cost-effective and innovative means to curb the wastage of water and also assured to strictly enforce the existing laws/by-laws of the corporation towards this end.