Government campaign convinces Delhi's luxury hotels to stop wasting water and electricity

 

Most of the 32 five-star hotels in Delhi, which were notoriously big polluters and guzzlers of water and energy, have fallen in line following a sustained, three-year campaign by the Capital’s pollution watchdog, claims a government report. 

The campaign that began in mid-2012 is starting to show results: five million litres of fresh water that’s good enough for a population of 50,000 is being saved every day in a city which perennially faces water crisis, more severely in summers. 

The collective water consumption at these luxury hotels has come down from 15 MLD (million litres a day) to 10 MLD, the Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) has said. These hotels together spewed 10 MLD of untreated sewage. 

That’s also down by to 2 MLD. 

They have set up clean-up plants or enhanced the capacity of existing ones, and are re-using — for non-potable purposes — a substantial part of this waste-water in and around their premises, a DPCC report says. 

The cleaned-up waste water is being used for cooling towers, AC plants and in parks and toilets. 

Earlier it was being pushed down the storm drains, contaminating soil and water, and wasting fresh water for non-drinking purposes. 

But there are some who are still violating environmental norms. 

Reacting to a DPCC inspection reports, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) has in two orders last month fined (from Rs 2 lakh to Rs 9 lakh in each case) nine hotels for non-satisfactory rainwater harvesting. 

Storage of rainwater is mandatory for such buildings; non-installation of required systems wastes millions of litres of precious water every monsoon. 

The implantation of the Green Hotels Guidelines that the DPCC put in place in 2008 for storage of rainwater and installation of waste water clean-up plants was not a smooth sailing because of the influence that the hospitality sector wields. 

Finally on June 3, 2013, a total of 32 signed an MoU with the Delhi government and agreed to implement the green guidelines.

The green guidelines also mandate these hotels to install systems for solar water heating, composting of organic waste and gas-based boilers. 

Officials from DPCC on Friday June 05,2015 sealed around 27 hotels for violating the norms laid down by the committee, after which large numbers of people staged a protest against the decision.

“After getting directions from the National Green Tribunal (NGT), the DPCC checked the documents of all 77 hotels and found that the hotels were operating without license from the municipal corporation and Delhi Police,” said Environment Minister Asim Ahmed Khan. Also, the hotels did not have pollution-checking devices. 

“They also did not have pollution- checking devices and thereafter, government issued a closure direction for them,” Khan said. He also added that the direction to cut supply of water and electricity of 77 hotels has also been issued by the government. 

According to an official, DPCC found several lapses in function of these hotels which were allegedly drawing water from about 30 borewells. 

They also did not have permission to use groundwater and were allegedly functioning illegally.