surat keeping in view the increasing water requirement of surat the central water commission cwc has suggested developing alternate sources of water supply in and around the city instead of depending on the single source the ukai dam the commission has suggested that civic bodies should start building reservoirs on the nonagriculture land near the coast and mouths of rivers near the city the reservoirs will store enough rain water which can be used for both irrigation and drinking purposes surats population is likely to touch 120 crore by 2021 and the water requirement is pegged at 1200 million litres per day as against the present need of about 700 mld which the civic body draws from tapi river and ukai dam nobody seems to think of other alternative sources of water like rain water or storing flood water said dr mahesh desai former deputy director of cwc considering the limited water resources desai along with fellow researcher rm tailor assistant professor in civil engineering department of svnit have come up with a new concept of water harvesting and storage of rain and flood water in the nonagriculture land near the mouth of the river tapi in olpad bhimpore and others in a presentation at india water week 2012 water energy and food security call for solutions organized by cwc and union ministry of water resources the duo came up with the innovative idea of flood water as a source of urban water with the case study of surat city in their paper they suggested that if the flood water is diverted and stored for usage it could help meet 30 to 50 per cent of citys requirements cwc will soon frame a policy in this regard as our presentation was accepted said desai this will require a small amendment in the land acquisition act as we have suggested a reserved plot area clubbing low lying land for the storage facility in every town planning scheme at present the surat municipal corporation smc has set up a huge network of storm water drain to flush out rain and flood waters from the city areas at the cost of rs 800 crores the two experts suggested that these storm drains could be converted in the reverse direction by giving a slant so that all the rain water that gets flushed out to sea will be deposited at the small ponds made for collection jatin shah city engineer smc said we will study the whole concept and see if it is feasible for the city when we talk of kharland we must remember that twice a day during high tide sea water enters in these lands making it saline we have to consider this fact and work accordingly