Less than 22% of TamilNadu buildings have a functional rain water harvesting system

Tamil Nadu’s faced a severe drought in 2003 which led a search for increase the groundwater through Rain Water Harvesting (RWH). It became the first state in the country to make RWH mandatory for all buildings, a law which was later followed by many states. Initial data revealed some gains in the water table, but subsequent findings has shown that the water table has started falling again.

As per data obtained through the Right to Information (RTI) Act, out of the 2.6 lakh-odd government buildings in the Tamil Nadu, just 56,000 have a functional rainwater harvesting structure in place. The data shows that nearly one lakh government buildings do not have any mechanism to save the rain water. All these figures are self reported and said to be optimistic projection of the figures. In the major towns of Tamil Nadu, the number of buildings with a function RWH out of the total number of buildings is as under:

·         Salem - 4840 out of 18083

·         Madurai - 4113 out of 17464

·         Tutucorin - 2298 out of 6567

·         Thiruvarur - 2160 out of 6843

·         Dharampuri - 1994 out of 7470

·         Thiruvannamalai- 1846 out of 16883

·         Namakkal - 1441 out of 9218

·         Vellore - 1112 out of 14538

·         Nagapattinum - 531 out 5281

The ground water depletion is a major problem faced by the country and and there is a need to take up the call on an urgent basis to address the issue.