Rainwater harvesting pits must: GVMC

Visakhapatnam: The Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation has decided to enforce rainwater harvesting system for all the residential and commercial establishments under the corporation limits.

Addressing a press conference here on Wednesday, Commissioner M Hari Narayanan said that GVMC has decided to make rain water harvesting compulsory for all the buildings and as a first step they will give a sufficient time of 30 to 45 days to over 5,000 establishments (residential and commercial) having semi-bulk water connection to implement functional rain water harvesting pits.

Rainwater harvesting is the need of the hour due to increasing urbanisation and depleting green cover in the fastest growing city, he added``We are appealing people to voluntarily take up the responsibility of having a rainwater harvesting pit to improve the groundwater levels which is not a costly affair,’’ he said.

He called upon the people in the city to take up plantation in a big way. GVMC has planted about 30, 000 saplings in 2016 and decided to plant about 25,000 more during this monsoon season, he added.

Claiming that GVMC has been focusing on the public health and sanitation, the Commissioner said preventive measures were being taken up to check the mosquito menace and water borne diseases. The GVMC has recruited 150 additional field staff this year to enforce the vector-borne disease control programme.

He explained the progress of various projects taken up under Vizag Smart City project.