No rainwater harvesting, no water connection

LUCKNOW: Houses without a rooftop rainwater harvesting system may not get water connection. Moreover, permission for boring will be denied. Under the legislation state government is planning to bring into effect to control and regulate use of groundwater, wastage of the resource might be a criminal offence.
The stringent legislation which will be ready in "ten days" will have penal clauses.“We plan to bring it during the monsoon session,” said Chandra Prakash, principal secretary, minor irrigation and groundwater department.
The legislation will be put in public domain and suggestions invited from people.
To hammer on the educational aspect, government has also ordered to include a chapter on rainwater harvesting system (RWH) in school books. The system has to be mandatorily installed in private houses of 300 square metre or more. The department, now plans to make it mandatory for houses having an area of 200 square metres and more to cover more households.
The groundwater level in the state is going down at an alarming average rate of 1metre annually. The previous government orders making it mandatory for the government buildings to have rooftop rainwater harvesting (RWH) system installed have not resulted into the needful because the use of groundwater in UP has never been governed by the Act. Besides, there has never been a monitoring and an enforcement agency to regulate extraction and use of groundwater.
Out of the 540-odd government buildings in the state which have the mechanism in place, at least 130 buildings are in Lucknow. But the UP groundwater department, the nodal agency for groundwater conservation has no record available of the buildings that lack the system or where the system is dysfunctional.
"We have deputed a special officer to ensure that rooftop rainwater harvesting is done in buildings besides monitoring that it is done in the rightful manner," said the official. The department has for the first time conducted training in installation and maintenance of rooftop RWH system in government buildings.
In February 2013, state government enforced groundwater policy. In 2010, it invited suggestions from people on UP Groundwater Conservation, Protection and Development (Management, Control and Regulation) (draft) Bill but it was never made into an Act.