Port Blair, Apr 17: Due to failure of North East Monsoon, water shortages are being felt in rural and urban areas of A&N Islands. The A&N Administration has taken various steps like transporting water from Rutland, Little Andaman etc. to sustain the water supply in Port Blair and surrounding areas, till the arrival of next monsoon. Scientific studies show that severity of such water shortages are likely to increase in the future due to the effect of global warming and climate change.
A&N Islands being a heavy rain fall region with about 3100 mm annual rainfall, there is huge potential for rain water harvesting at individual as well as community level, to supplement the water requirements of individual household and local areas. The Administration accordingly made necessary provisions in Port Blair Municipal Council Building Bye Laws (Amendment), 2018 (which came into effect from 21/02/2019) and the Andaman and Nicobar (Panchayat Administration) Rules, 2019 (which came into effect from 04/02/2020) stipulating installation of Rain Water Harvesting systems in all the new buildings in municipal and panchayat areas. Rain water harvesting practice in public buildings is being strengthened by taking up retrofitting of existing building with rain water harvesting system. Repair of existing defunct rain water harvesting systems are also being taken up by APWD in a phased manner.
Under this Rain Water Harvesting scheme, APWD has already completed installation of rain water harvesting systems in 14 nos of public buildings in different tehsil of South Andaman district with a total storage capacity of 1133 Kilo Litres (1.13ML). Out of these, 14 buildings, 7 (Seven) are in Port Blair including Raj Niwas and Secretariat accounting for about 1095 KL storage capacity, 2 (Two) buildings with 18 KL capacity are in Wimberlygunj and 5 (Five) buildings are in Little Andaman with 20 KL storage capacity .
Action is underway to cover 13 more Government buildings in Port Blair during this financial year. Similarly, efforts are also being made to retrofit more public buildings in rural areas to make them less dependent on public water supply in the area, to ensure availability of safe and sustainable water supply to public and also to meet future shortage of water.
