Mysuru: Not implementing Rain Water Harvesting at home may land you in a soup forcing you to pay a fine till you harvest rain water. MCC Commissioner Shilpa Nag has ordered her officers to penalise violators.

As per the order, houses and buildings that have been built in an area of 50X80 and above must mandatorily have Rain Water Harvesting (RWH) facility. All kinds of buildings including houses, residential complexes, apartments, commercial structures and government offices come under this category and they must have RWH mechanism.

Houses and buildings that do not have RWH facility will have to pay additional 5 percent of water bill till five months and if there is non-compliance, 25 percent of the water bill will be levied as fine after five-month deadline.

Many properties will face penalties and a majority of those who will incur penalty are structures that are above 30×40 in dimension with no buffer space in their compounds, constructed in violation of building by-laws. However, lack of buffer zone is no limitation for RWH. Residences can even use their water sumps for RWH, said MCC officials. “We are doing our job by imposing a penalty. It is now up to the citizens to implement RWH. There are several good examples in city where people are implementing RWH. We are encouraging this further and identifying best practices, so that others can follow the same,” the officials added.

According to MCC officials, a RWH system can reduce water dependency by at least 25,000 litres per month for a house on a 1,200 square feet plot. At present, over 250 MLD (million litres per day) water is pumped from Cauvery and Kabini to fulfil the needs of Mysuru.

MCC had in July last made it mandatory for all constructions above 30X40 to have the facility but there is little compliance by residents. “People have been making excuses and not implementing RWH, even as underground water levels are depleting. So we have decided to bring in this penalty regime,” they said.