The coal town’s municipal corporation on Sunday walked the rainwater harvesting talk by digging a large soak pit on its office campus at Luby Circular Road here.

The 9-foot-deep soak pit with a 12-foot diameter kick-started the coal town’s activities in greening and rainwater conservation. These initiatives will go on till August 22.

A soak pit is a porous, covered chamber that allows rainwater to seep in slowly and enrich the soil, recharging the water table of the area.

Dhanbad mayor Chandrashekhar Agarwal formally launched the rainwater harvesting project by breaking a coconut near the soak pit in the presence of deputy municipal commissioner Rajesh Kumar Singh, additional municipal commissioner Sanjeev Kumar, executive officers Md Anis and Vijay Kumar and over 20 ward councillors.

Explaining how the soak pit would be useful, the mayor said: “Now, we will collect rainwater from the rooftop of our building and send it to the soak pit to recharge the water table.” He added similar water harvesting systems would be built at other government buildings and multi-storeyed apartments. “These are easy to build and maintain,” he said.

Executive officer of Dhanbad Municipal Corporation Md Anis outlined their plans.

Anis said they would plant saplings in all the 55 wards of Dhanbad spread over five circles Jharia, Dhanbad, Sindri, Katras and Chhatatand from July 8-15, which would be followed by building water harvesting structures at 25 buildings from July 26 to July 22. They will also build soak pits near all government hand pumps across 55 wards from July 23 to August 6. From August 7 to 22, they will clear the inlets of 150 small and large ponds to help them store water.

Councillor Ankesh Raj lauded these plans. “Water is life. Depleting water table has become a source of real worry in Dhanbad’s mushrooming concrete jungle. We need to pitch in to improve the situation.”