The plunging ground water level and growing dependency on water tankers have led to more individual house-owners, apartment complexes and gated communities placing enquiries with the organisations that promote rainwater harvesting in the city.
The success stories of a few residential colonies and apartment complexes who did not have to buy water this summer, thanks to well-executed rainwater harvesting structures, are inspiring others to follow suit.
Rolling Hills Gated Community at Gachibowli has been a tanker-free community for the last seven years. Of 90 homes in the colony, only 10 houses buy water from one or two tankers. Earlier, the residents used to buy 15 to 16 tankers, but after setting up 40 rainwater harvesting pits and 16 injection bores by tapping rainwater to recharge bore-wells, the colony ceased to face water scarcity, say residents.
Chandrasekhar, a resident of an apartment complex at Kukatpally, recounts his happy experience. After constructing a rainwater harvesting structure at their complex, they did not have to depend on water tankers.
Sabitha, a resident of Alwal, too shares her experience of rainwater harvesting in their colony. However, big gated communities seem to be lagging behind in rainwater harvesting. Aparna Sarovar has 29 RWHPs provided by the builder. Though the original drawings have recharge pits, the base is concreted and the rainwater is directed into drains outside the apartment complex defeating the purpose of recharging the water table.
At Lanco Hills too, the RWHPs have remained non-functional, which the residents realised to their surprise recently.
“But the good news is that there is a lot of intent. This is the right time to harvest rainwater. We get at least 60 calls from independent houses, apartment owners, temples, hospitals and even malls, thanks to the awareness drive on social media platforms, to help them store rainwater in sumps of varying sizes, and recharge bore-wells,” says Kalpana of the Society for Advancement of Human Endeavour (SAHE).
“The realisation to save rainwater as well as finding possible solutions to recharge, recycle and reuse water is growing, but there is a dearth of skilled manpower,” she says.
For the first time, SAHE tied up with government departments such as Hyderabad Metro Water Supply and Sewerage Board and GHMC, academic institutions like JNTU, training institutes and social entrepreneurs and launched a structured plan for the city to do mass rainwater harvesting. It also relaunched its ‘Save 10,000 Bores’ initiative.
Ms. Kalpana says a series of workshops are being conducted with the help of JNTU to empower skilled plumbers for constructing RWH pits with the help of Dhanush Engineering Services. People want to conserve water, but lack of technical know-how or support to execute the structures is the main drawback to take up RWH in a big way in the city.
“We are now focused on building a team with hands-on experience. Once the community is ready to go ahead with implementing RWH, the team empowered with the right skills can ease out and expedite the journey from intent to action for all the parties involved. We hope Hyderabad will set an example for others to follow,” she says.
