Realising the importance of recharging groundwater, the Central Ground Water Board (CGWB) is taking steps to encourage the practice in the capital Delhi and elsewhere in India. Many government buildings have been asked to take up rainwater harvesting.

Kerala: The Kerala Municipality Building Rules, 1999, were amended through a notification dated January 12, 2004, issued by the government of Kerala to include rainwater harvesting structures in all new constructions.

New Delhi: Since June 2001, the Ministry of Urban Affairs and Poverty Alleviation has made rainwater harvesting mandatory in all new buildings with a roof area of over 100 square metres and in all plots with an area of over 1,000 square metres. The Central Ground Water Authority (CGWA) has made rainwater harvesting mandatory in all institutions and residential colonies in notified areas. The CGWA has also banned the drilling of tubewells in notified areas.

Indore (Madhya Pradesh): Rainwater harvesting has been made mandatory in all new buildings with an area of 250 square metres or more. A rebate of 6% on property tax has been offered as an incentive for implementing rainwater harvesting systems.

Kanpur (Uttar Pradesh): Rainwater harvesting has been made mandatory in all new buildings with an area of 1,000 square metres or more.

Hyderabad (Andhra Pradesh): Rainwater harvesting has been made mandatory in all new buildings with an area of 300 square metres or more.

Tamil Nadu: Through an ordinance titled the Tamil Nadu Municipal Laws Ordinance, 2003, dated July 19, 2003, the government has made rainwater harvesting mandatory for all buildings, both public and private, in the state.

Haryana: The Haryana Urban Development Authority (HUDA) has made rainwater harvesting mandatory in all new buildings, irrespective of roof area. In notified areas in Gurgaon town and the adjoining industrial areas, the CGWA has asked all institutions and residential colonies to adopt water harvesting techniques. The CGWA has also banned the drilling of tubewells in notified areas.

Rajasthan: The state government has made rainwater harvesting mandatory for all public establishments and all properties in plots covering more than 500 square metres in urban areas.

Mumbai: Rainwater harvesting is mandatory for all buildings that are being constructed on plots that are more than 1,000 square metres in size.

Gujarat: The state roads and buildings department has made rainwater harvesting mandatory for all government buildings.

Successful rainwater harvesting schemes in various states

Amritham Jalam (water is nectar), Rajasthan

Rajasthan has always been a water-scarce state. It averages an alarmingly low 20 cm in just about 15 days of rainfall in a year.

Hundreds of years ago, rulers in the princely state created scores of traditional water storage systems -- bawris -- so that rainwater could be harvested and used throughout the year. But with modern piped water, these traditional structures have lost their importance. Down the years, they just crumbled or became large garbage pits.

A couple of years ago, a leading daily newspaper, Rajasthan Patrika, celebrating its 50th anniversary, came up with an innovative plan. It began a daily campaign in the paper, called ‘Amritham Jalam’ (water is nectar), urging people to come forward and clean up all unused traditional water harvesting systems.

The campaign was a huge hit and turned into a mass movement. With environmentalists lending their expertise, people from all age-groups set to work de-silting tanks and restoring traditional wells. The volunteers cleaned up 385 unused traditional ponds, wells and water storage facilities. Once the rains came, the erstwhile bawris sprang to life once again.

In Jaipur, reservoirs like Jaganathsagar, Girdharpura ki Talai and Panchya ka Talab had been lying unused for over 20 years. As many as 25 tractors of silt were pulled out of these reservoirs and, when the rains came, water slowly began trickling into the reservoirs and wells.

Pala Thulli (many drops), Kerala

As Kerala reeled under yet another drought in 2004, the fourth in succession, the people panicked and the media group Malayala Manorama decided to act.

They initiated a multi-pronged drive called Pala Thulli (many drops), the two words taken from a Malayalam proverb that says that deluges are made from many drops. The plan was to inculcate a new water culture among people to prevent wastage of water. And to collectively implement projects that would enable the state’s bountiful rainfall to be collected throughout the year. “We have 45 lakh wells, 44 rivers that crisscross the landscape, and an average rainfall of 3,000 mm. Still, all our storage facilities run dry soon after the monsoon,” said an editorial in the paper.

People pitched in with their resources, saved every drop of rainwater, recharged the groundwater, and Pala Thulli became a huge success story.

Gendathur village, Karnataka

Gendathur, a remote village in the backward Heggadadevanakote taluka, in Mysore district, is on the verge of achieving a rare distinction. It is the first in the state to have installed a maximum number of rainwater harvesting systems. Thanks to the Mysore Zilla Panchayat, the village, which has around 200 households, will soon become a role model for rainwater conservation. The villagers of Gendathur use rainwater for all their everyday needs; they even use it for drinking and cooking.

Gendathur is a remote village in Mysore. It is bounded on one side by the backwaters of the Kabini river and on the other side by the forests of the Nagarhole National Park. With the borewell pump out of order most of the time, the villagers, especially women, had to struggle to procure water.

That’s when a team from the zilla panchayat and MYRADA (an NGO) consulted the villagers about a proposal to make the village ‘rainwater-rich’. The villagers volunteered to contribute 20% of the project cost. Each unit of the rainwater harvesting system costs a household Rs 15,000.

The rainwater harvesting system consisted of a brick masonry tank with a capacity of 5,000 litres. A conical mesh filter, a first flush device and a sand filter incorporated within the tank are part of the unit. The length of the collection pipe is within 60-70 feet, in keeping with local conditions.

The roof area harvested in each house varies between 550 square feet and 700 square feet. Gendathur receives an annual precipitation of 1,000 mm. With 80% collection efficiency, every house collects and uses around 50,000 litres of water every year.

Akash Ganga Chennai, Chennai

Akash Ganga Chennai (water from the sky in Chennai) is a citizen’s effort to promote rainwater harvesting among the people of Chennai. There are many successful rainwater harvesting installations in the city -- atop houses, buildings and factories. The objective is to reach citizens, business leaders and school and college students and urge them to take action now to try and solve Chennai’s water problems.

-- Mita Banerjee
(Mita Banerjee is a Pune-based journalist)

InfoChange News & Features, June 2008