SMARAN roots for rainwater harvesting to address water woes

Hyderabad: 'SMARAN,' an environmental and developmental organisation started in 1997 to promote natural resource based livelihoods for poor and rural communities feels that Inverse Bore Well (IBW) system was best suited for cities like Hyderabad. This NGO which is dedicated to promote rain harvesting methods had taken up a study in Bengaluru and Chennai to study how different models of rain harvesting methods since 2004 and has come to the conclusion that IBW method was best suited for cities like Hyderabad. Their experiments had proved that the ground water levels had increase at most of the sites where they had tried this method.

According to Subhash Chandra Reddy, founder of SMARAN, Hyderabad city has thousands of borewells abandoned with depth ranging from 120ft to 1500 ft which have gone dry because of over extraction or low groundwater levels. In the above mentioned IBW method, rainwater harvesting will use those existing deep, dry and boreholes for artificial recharge. Huge volumes of rooftop area rainwater (approximately one lakh litres/ 100 sqm rooftop area per annum) collected from the building's rooftop area and from selective surface areas channelized through the rainwater outlets leads to the rise in ground water table, thereby increasing borewells lifespan and yield.

Reddy considers this as the best practice for city water's sustainability and mitigate flooding due to rapid and massive growth in our city infrastructure. Speaking to The Hans India, he said, "We need to revive abandoned and existing dry borewells and use them to replenish groundwater sources, through rainwater harvesting, which can lead to far reaching implications in addressing the city's water requirements." He strongly believes that a single model of rainwater harvesting alone cannot work across all sorts of terrain and construction sites.

It will also reduce dependence on external water tank supply. For instance, few became zero dependent like the National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT) campus, Madhapur, Hi tech city spread over ten acres is one of the rain water harvesting projects. SMARAN also worked in newly formed municipalities Badangpet Nagarapanchayat (BNP-consisting of 8 villages) in peri urban which is one of the 5 surrounding Hyderabad city, with a population of nearly one lakh spread in 24 square kms of area. As a group they have implemented various measures at the Botanical Garden, spread over 200 acres to achieve water sustainability and flood mitigation in surrounding roads and colonies, Telangana State Forest Academy (TSFA), Dhulapally, Government school in Raj Bhavan and others.