Kolkata: high-rise buildings will soon have rooftop gardens and rainwater harvesting
In March, the New Town Kolkata Development Authority (NKDA) issued an advisory directed towards a sustainable life.
The points were :
- It urged residents to install rainwater harvesting systems and rooftop gardens inside their housing complexes.
- Planting trees on every plot.
- Installing electric vehicle charging stations inside complexes.
- And developing wastewater recycling systems.
Now NKDA is looking forward to issuing a final notice regarding the same. The notice will make it mandatory to have rooftop gardening and rainwater harvesting in all high-rise buildings. Along with these mandatory rules, the notice can also add some more new rules to it.
What is the aim of NKDA?
The officials said that the primary goal is to make New Town (Kolkata) a clean and green town. In order to maintain the city’s ‘green’ status, the township needs to develop sustainable environments.
What’s the progress till now?
- In some of its market complexes, NKDA has already implemented rooftop gardening.
- Updates and advisory documents – As per the March 2021 update, the advisory documents recommend installing wastewater recycling systems in all buildings, including group housing, with a minimum daily discharge of 25,000L or more for flushing toilets, laundry, and car-washing. To minimize heat absorption, the roof areas of all buildings should be painted with reflective paint and covered with solar panels.
The New Town Kolkata Development Authority also proposed design requirements for the rooftop garden. This includes providing sheds for the rooftop garden, design structure should be focused on sustaining the load of the soil, no seepage or leakage should be there, having a room area, etc. are some of the requirements proposed by NKDA in their March 2021 advisory.
Furthermore, the NKDA has proposed a maximum permissible limit of 120 litres per capita per day for residents and 40 liters per capita per day for the floating population. Also, a target has been set by NKDA of planting 10,000 trees this year to increase green cover.
There were many points shared in the 22 March 2021 document that can be made mandatory in this notice. Click on this link to read the official advisory on “Rainwater harvesting, tree cover, wastewater recycling, and rooftop gardening.”
The new initiatives are focused on the benefit of the New Town, and indeed, the recognition of the initiative will motivate other cities to follow the same. New Town has already started getting recognition. One of them is the Indian Green Building Council (IGBC) ‘s Platinum-rated Green City certification in recognition of its eco-friendly initiatives.
Soon, the final updates will be provided following the final notice by NKDA.
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