Kolkata Municipal Corporation to ask for water consumption estimate with housing plan
Kolkata, West Bengal
From now on, it will be compulsory for developers of large housing projects to provide an estimate of the water requirement, both during construction and when the apartments are handed over to owners for possession, to the Kolkata Municipal Corporation in order to get the required permission sanctioned.
The KMC board of administrators chairman Firhad Hakim said that the civic body needs the data to estimate the water requirement so that they can also effectively plan for the augmentation of their drinking water infrastructure to ensure that parity is maintained between demand and supply.
The data will also help the drainage department plan it’s augmentation in capacity. A senior official from the KMC sewerage and drainage department said that they are going to take an undertaking from the developers that they will assist the Corporation financially, for the implementation of a drainage development project meant for the customers of their residential projects.
KMC has been assessing the water requirement of residents of existing housing complexes that currently draw water from borewells, and do not have a proper piled water supply from the civic body. This problem is especially acute in areas along the EM Bypass, where several high-rises have come up in the past two decades and several more are either already under construction or are being planned.
A vast segment of the people living in these high-rises do not get their water supplied by the KMC. KMC has also asked developers to set up a sewage treatment plant (STP) and compost plant in each of their complexes and ensure that it is properly maintained and functional.
Mini compactor stations to effectively manage solid waste within housing campuses have also been suggested.Currently, all housing projects of over 20,000 sqm are required to construct a STP and manage its solid waste effectively in order to get clearance from the Ministry of Environment and Forest (MoEF).
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News source: Times of India
Updated by Indranuj Ray