All RWAs know that the supply of water by the Noida Authority is never enough; the balance has to be fulfilled by boring and extracting groundwater. In the early 2000s, you could reach Noida’s water table at 40 metres. Now it is reachable at only 140 feet, in some areas at no less than 200 feet, the last 7 years seeing our groundwater depletion at nearly 10-11 feet per year.
Rainwater harvesting (RWH) is the easiest way of restoring groundwater. Most of our societies have RWH systems, but they are lying defunct for various reasons.
Last year, our society conducted an infrastructure survey and was pleasantly surprised to find an RWH system in existence. After understanding the pipeline network, we undertook the de-clogging of the mouth of the pipelines from the roof, guiding the path of the water to the rainwater manholes, connecting them to the rainwater pipeline under the driveway (that had perforated manholes to collect surface rainwater run-off) to finally reach the RWH pits.
The process of reactivating the RWH system was simple. With the use of air pressure pumps and circulatory water pressure systems, all the pipelines were cleared of years of sludge, enabling free flow of water to the RWH pits. The pits were also de-clogged of sludge so that the central perforated bore pipe filled with gravel and sand filtered the water before it went down the pipeline to the water table.
Most societies would have an RWH system already in place. It only has to be revived. It is not cost intensive, starting from as low as Rs 30,000 to clean the RWH pits to under 1.5 lakhs to clean and make operational the RWH system.
The monsoons are three months away. The time is right to conduct a survey of your existing RWH system and make it operational by the end of June.
Note: A workshop on How to Revive/ Install Rainwater Harvesting System will be held in March and the first week of April. Contact Anupam Mohanty at 98112 59333 for details.
RWH pit receiving rainwater
