Coinciding with the onset of north-east monsoon, the district administration has accorded a thrust to raising awareness of rainwater harvesting.
On Monday, a campaign vehicle of Tamil Nadu Water Supply and Drainage Board (TWAD) fitted with electronic screen was flagged off by Collector A. Arun Thamburaj to create awareness of rainwater harvesting methods across the district.
TWAD employees, who started the awareness campaign by screening a short film on harvesting rainwater through rooftop and borewell methods in all local bodies, also distribute pamphlets describing the procedure elaborately.
According to officials, the people will be sensitised to the corollary between rainwater harvesting during the monsoon and mitigating drinking water scarcity during summer.
TWAD has issued guidelines to all district administrations on deriving utility of Sustainable Water Security Mission (SuWaSeM) that envisions move progressively towards water security in a sustainable manner through water harvesting, waste water recycling, loss reduction and demand management.
The rainwater collected from the rooftop can be used to recharge groundwater aquifers through various kinds of structures to ensure percolation of rainwater into the ground through open well, bore well, recharge pit, recharge trench, recharge shaft, and percolation tanks.
Urban local bodies are expected to sustain the benefits of rainwater harvesting systems through incentive methods. They are required to conduct annual physical verification of prevalence of rainwater harvesting systems in buildings measuring 1,000 sq.m and above. For buildings of lesser size, random verification has been specified by TWAD in its guidelines.
