The Bombay High Court on Tuesday issued notice to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) on a plea seeking conservation of rain water instead of letting it all get drained in the sea; and preservation, protection and enhancement of the natural ground water table in the city.
A bench of Chief Justice DK Upadhyaya and Justice Amit Borkar issued the notice while hearing a public interest litigation by activist Zoru Bathena highlighting that Mumbai is “blessed with good rainfall”, and instead of allowing the rain water to get stored underground, the BMC is building more cemented drains and pumping all this good rain water out to sea. Instead, the rain water should be allowed to flow into the ground to enhance the groundwater table.
The BMC is even constructing cemented drains in natural open spaces, instead of constructing rain water harvesting pits and wells. The plea gives the example of Mother Teresa Playground, a natural mud filled playground at Khar, where the BMC fitted cemented Storm Water Drain inside to “avoid flooding”. “BMC ought to have built rain water harvesting pits and wells to allow the rain water to soak into the ground, but they chose cemented SWD's to drain the water out to sea instead. It is this fundamental wrong in MCGM's rain water draining plans that needs to be corrected,” the plea added.
The Maharashtra State Water Policy mandates the conservation of rain water and hence makes rain water harvesting mandatory in urban areas. Also, the DCPR contains detailed provisions for rain water harvesting for recharging the ground water and to ensure that rainwater naturally percolates into the ground in Open Spaces.
In addition, the plea also highlights the draining of groundwater extracted for construction of basements and the same being drained in the sea instead of conserving it. For basement construction, the natural soil and rock is extracted and a large pit is dug. This pit fills up with the natural ground water. This groundwater is pumped out and drained out to sea through BMC’s SWD network. “It takes weeks and sometimes months to drain out all the groundwater to build a basement. This is a huge waste of precious ground water,” the plea underlines. The BMC should set up a mechanism to filter and use all the precious groundwater extracted from every basement construction site.
The plea suggests that road side drains should be built with a natural (soil) base, to ensure that maximum rain water is soaked into the ground. Also, rain water harvesting pits and wells need to be built along every road, to prevent excess rain water from being drained into the sea. Besides, building rainwater harvesting wells will prevent flooding at several spots.
The BMC had once announced through its social media post that, on a heavy rain day in 2019, it pumped out 14,000 Million Litres of precious rain water out to sea. This is more than the combined capacity of Tulsi and Vihar Lakes, the plea said, adding that the same should have been preserved instead of wasting it.
The plea seeks that the BMC be directed to ensure that every road side drain and SWD has a provision for rain water to soak into the ground, both naturally and via rain water harvesting pits and wells. Also, the BMC be directed to build rainwater harvesting wells at every flooding spot.
