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Theme park to sort water harvesting problems

Bangalore, March 21, DH News Service:

A theme park on rainwater harvesting, inaugurated here on Monday, will give a real fillip to efforts aimed at making the City denizens aware of the importance of conserving water.

“Every drop of water is going to become expensive in Bangalore if people do not wake up to the growing water crisis in the City. It is high time the citizens understood their responsibility and use water judiciously and adopt rainwater harvesting,” according to Home and Transport Minister R Ashok. Inaugurating Sir M Visvesvarayya rainwater harvesting (RWH) theme park, one of its kind anywhere in the country, constructed by the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB) in Jayanagar here on Monday, the minister called upon the people of Bangalore to look beyond BWSSB supply and to start indigenous ways of water storage. Although efforts have been made to create awareness about the importance of RWH, as per BWSSB’s records, only 24,195 houses in the City have adopted the method till date out of 56,000 houses identified for the purpose. The newly constructed rainwater harvesting theme park is the first of its kind in India built over 4,636 sq metres where the entire park is dedicated to demonstrate 27 methods of installing rainwater harvesting. The park has an information centre called ‘Thunthuru’ which provides all information about the technology used in RWH. There is an auditorium with 70 seats which showcases short films about water and its conservation methods. Different equipment like pop-up filters used in RWH installation will be kept for display; list of plumbers’ names and numbers are also available. Books related to the RWH technology and answers for ‘frequently asked questions’ will be available. There will be help desks to clarify all doubts related to RWH at the theme park, questions can be asked over the phone too; once every week, an expert will advise citizens about the importance of RWH. There is an amphitheatre which will stage plays and music programmes. The theme for World Water Day has been rightly chosen as ‘Water for Cities: Responding to Urban Challenges’ for the year 2011. The government will shortly decide on the deadline to install RWH to those houses which are located on 60x40 area and all new houses which will be constructed on 30x40 area in the City.