As Bangalore is facing severe water shortage, the State Government has proposed to introduce a law to make rainwater harvesting mandatory for all new buildings — residential and commercial — in the city.

Addressing presspersons here on Monday, Minister for Excise Katta Subramanya Naidu, who is also in-charge Minister for Bangalore, said rainwater harvesting would be made compulsory in all parks, government offices, private offices, residential apartment complexes, houses, schools and college campuses. Rainwater harvesting would ease the water shortage by about 10 to 15 per cent, he said.

The law would fix responsibility on the Government to undertake programmes for rainwater harvesting.

Launch

The programme would be launched in Jayanagar constituency in a few days and later extended to all 28 Assembly constituencies in Bangalore.

The proposed law would be drafted on the lines of the legislation in Tamil Nadu.

A Bill in this regard would be introduced in the coming session of the legislature, he said. According to a survey conducted by the State Mines and Geology Department, a large number of watersheds in Bangalore Rural and Urban had been categorised as overexploited because of the existence of a large number of borewells.

The Food and Civil Supplies Department had received 6.24 lakh new applications, and of them 94,938 of below the poverty line families had been approved. As many as 61,900 applications had been rejected. About 2.6 lakh ration cards would be distributed to the above poverty line families. All pending applications would be cleared by October 15, he said.

Complaints

There were complaints of irregularities in the distribution of foodgrains to ration card holders in the city.

To monitor the distribution of grain, the Government would appoint two food inspectors to each of 28 constituencies in the city, he added.