RWH on a war footing by the Serai Group in Bandipur, India

 

Walking out of my room, slinging my camera over my shoulder, my eyes were greeted with a riot of flaming magenta and red bougainvillea, flowering just outside the front door of my cottage, in The Serai, Bandipur.

  

It was a dry fresh 7a.m. filled with liquid birdsong, as I walked along a path with Manjunath BS the Maintenance Engineer and Imran Ali Khan, naturalist of The Serai Bandipur resort. Fresh water is a precious commodity here as it is in the scrub region of the jungle. Jungle Babblers and Bulbuls in their hundreds, made their noisy presence felt, and as I brushed past the bamboo leaves drops of dew wet my arms and blouse.

  

“Look at the deep trench that we have dug along the path,” said Manjunath.“We have to conserve every drop of rainwater that falls here as the hills beyond, prevent the clouds from bringing us liberal quantities of rain. These trenches carry the rain water to ponds and percolation pits which are 10 feet by 20 feet and which are used to recharge our 18 bore-wells.”

 

The base of the pit if filled with a layer of sand and jelly through which the rain water percolates and then goes down to recharge the bore-wells. “We spend 10 to 15 thousand on each pit but we can conserve over 40 thousand litres of water with recharging the pits. Above the sand and jelly we put a layer of leaves and small branches just to prevent the water from getting evaporated,” he says.

 

“Without rain water harvesting most of our bore-wells went dry,” said Imran ,“that is because we are 902 metres above sea level and so our bore-wells go dry even at depths of a 1000 metres. RWH helps to recharge these bore-wells and the channels and trenches help to guide this water run off directly to where it should percolate down into the soil.”

  

“Our resort is spread over 18 acres and we don’t want a drop of the precious rain water to go out of it. So you can see the channels and trenches criss -cross the property and carry the water via pipes under the paths to where it is collected in pits.”

  

The Serai group is very organised and keep a log of the rainwater which has been harvested at the property over the last four years. They require 22 thousand litres per day when the resort is at full occupancy. They even channelise the grey water of baths and kitchens to a Sewage treatment plant, before the treated water, is used to water the garden and the trees.

 

This is the only way forward say both Manjunath and Imran and it is heartening to note that instead of just buying tankers of water and depleting the ground water elsewhere which is the norm in India, the resort has its own RWH system already in place, even though it is barely a year into its operations. For details contact: Coffee Day Resorts Pvt. Ltd., Coffee Day Square, Vittal Mallaya Road, Bangalore, Ph: 4001 2345 or www.theserai.in Marianne de Nazareth

Inspirational and Instructional books on RWH in India

Two books on catching the rain have recently been released in India – one a fun book to give inspiration and the other a more serious one that is instructional too.

Let’s catch the rain!
  

This 20 page colour picture book by Vinod Lal Heera Eshwer illustrates how easy it is to catch the rain and use it. Published in India by Tulika Books, it is available in English and seven Indian languages for Rs 65 (India shipping) or $USD 4.50 (International shipping) on the Tulika website.

To go with the book is an animation film Why catch the rain? and a rain catching game in which your score depends both on the raindrops you catch and those that go down the drain. 

Richa Jha’s review about the book clearly indicates that it is a book that everyone irrespective of age will enjoy.

“The message is so simple, it’ll give you goose bumps wondering why nothing is being done about it, panning across individual and state levels; the words and the solutions are so obvious, they’ll make you feel stupid for having to look into a book for them; the idea behind the book is so familiar and commonplace, you’ll wonder why it took us writers and editors and illustrators and publishers this long to take it to our kids in this direct a manner; the simplicity of this book is so endearing, it makes you salute the mind behind it; the impact of a book like this is so powerful, it makes you get up and check every single tap in your house – just in case. A book like this stops being just a book; share it with as many people as is possible – it is the blueprint for a safer, happier, healthier and more peaceful tomorrow. Give it in the hands of every human being; there will never be a WW III over water!”

Catch Water Where It Falls - Toolkit on Urban Rainwater Harvesting

This 172 page book by Gita Kavarana and Sushmita Sengupta is based on case studies of rain water implementation in various types of premises. These include independent residences, residential colonies and apartments, schools, hospitals, government buildings, places of worship, industries, hotels, shopping complexes, sports complexes, urban lakes and wells. It also serves as a guide (a toolkit as the title says) to help you design and implement a rain water harvesting system in your premises.

Published in India by Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), it is available in English for Rs 595 (India shipping) or $USD 38.00 (International shipping) on the CSEIndian Store and CSDGlobal Store. 

Happy rain water harvesting!