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| Sealine - A Success Story |
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| Rain Water Harvesting in Chennai |
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| Thirst in the land of malhaar |
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| Episode Summary: Water |
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| Water and a City: The Film |
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| Guest Profiles |
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| Sealine - A Success Story |
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By Navin Chandra
The most precious thing today is water. The entire world including India is presently suffering from shortage of drinking water. Due global warming, population explosion, unabated new construction and industrialization, such water shortage is bound only to escalate in the coming years reaching a crisis situation in the next 5-10 years.
India will need 1498 billion cubic metres water by 2030, whereas the water supply will rise to barely half the total requirement to 744 bcm. Since most of the water is used to produce food, scarcity of water will mean serious scarcity of food too. Maharashtra is presently facing drought in 17 districts, people are leaving home and migrating, crops are spoiled and cattle are dying! Back home in Mumbai, the present potable water demand/supply gap is about 800 mld (million litres per day) causing misery and health problems to its people.
The ground water level in Mumbai is fast depleting due to thousands of bore-wells drawing out huge quantity of water without any adequate replenishment, thus diminishing Mumbai’s future as well.
Conservation of water, therefore, through all possible means (i: consume less, ii: reuse/recycle, iii: stop leakage etc) must be taken up at top priority. Due to high power consumption and problem of disposal of salt-sediments, desalination is not the answer. The practical, low cost and high-yield conservation methods are rain water harvesting and gray bath-room and waste water recycling. Mumbai has average yearly rainfall of about 100 cm, even if half of this is stopped from flowing to the sea and instead harvested and charged into the subsoil to keep the water table up, Mumbai will not suffer any shortage of water. Only then any additional bore-wells should be allowed to draw water to meet the non-potable water requirement which accounts for 40 -45 % of the total water consumption. Besides, the bore-well water can also be treated-n-filtered to make it potable as and when required.
The suggested water management is simple, practical, not very costly and can be done even in a small society premises. It must be taken as a necessary investment and not cost. Our society, Sealine CHS was suffering with drinking water shortage 7 years ago, needing 2-3 tankers per week, but since we installed the rain water harvesting system and started using bore-well water for non-potable purposes, we do not need any tanker supply thus saving money and avoiding dirty water, in fact we supply water to our neighbours in critical situations. When necessary we can also clean and filter the bore-well water in a small water treatment/filtration plant installed within the Society. The water table in Sealine even in summer is aver.10 ft only.
After the success in Sealine, I have persuaded 5 other societies in Khar-Bandra area to undertake rain-water harvesting and they are happy with the result.
It is high time Mumbai wakes up and all the housing societies big/small/old/new must compulsorily adopt rain water harvesting and other measures of water conservation within 2012-13. Govt of Maharashtra, BMC and all the relevant authorities and NGOs must fully coordinate and cooperate in this direction on a war footing, before it is too late!
For suggestions and help you may contact Sealine CHS: Tel: 26465264, 40060026, Email: sealinechs@gmail.com
Union Park Residents' Association (UPRA): Tel: 42663000, Email: upra.jagomumbai@gmail.com>.
‘Jago Mumbai’ Community Radio: www.jagomumbai.in / www.jagomumbairadio.com
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