The last time residents of Hiranya Apartments on Greenways Road in R.A. Puram bought water from private suppliers was in the mid-1990s, when the city was witnessing a drought as severe as the one this year.
Even then it was only a precautionary measure. This 104-unit apartment complex with a population of more than 250, has a strong rooftop rainwater harvesting structure. “The RWH system was put in place by the builder even before we moved in. Pipelines from the terrace were connected to percolation pits all around the compound. Every drop of water from the terrace flows back into the ground,” says R. Raghunandan, senior member of Hiranya Flat Owners’ Association.
A few years ago, the residents noticed that rainwater falling on the ground inside the campus was running off to the road.
So, they built two collection points near the main gate and the side gate of the complex with the help of Rain Centre to divert the run-off to the percolation pits.
The apartment complex has a 25-feet-deep open well and four borewells, each about 50-feet deep and have enough water to see them through the crisis. “Last year, the open well had about 12 feet of water and dipped to 4 feet this year due to monsoon failure. It went up by one foot during the rain last week. Though the borewells yield a good supply of water, we have limited the water pumping to 45,000 litres a day to prevent wastage,” says Raghunandan.
