My City My Responsibility - Harvesting rainwater for the Dry days!

 Dear All, 

Collage of some of the photos

Being a part of the Climate Reality Project, I happened to connect with Shivam Singh, a young enthusiast working on tree plantation and the founder of a startup ExploreiT, working for youth empowerment and environmental activism. 

Currently he is also assisting Col. Shashikant Dalvi, a retired army officer, working tirelessly for incorporating rainwater harvesting in housing societies of Pune and the founder of Parjanya Rainwater Harvesting Consultancy. He is currently focused on making the rural areas around Pune water resilient, through his association with the Climate Reality Project. One such initiative lead to installation of rainwater harvesting systems in four villages namely Kurvandi, Thugaon, Bavadi, Karegaon on Pune Nashik road. 

I got an opportunity to visit these villages, and was accompanied by Dr Prassana Jogdeo, Co-founder of Lemnion Green Solutions, Radhika Dhingra, Director of  Badlaav Social Reform Foundation. and her colleague Munira. Mr. Anirudh Todkar, CEO, MAPS Industries Pune, a dynamic personality responsible for implementation of the RWH System also accompanied us. 

The first village we visited was Karegaon, where we met the Sarpanch Mrs. Suvarna Gevade. She was very happy to greet us. Radhika spoke to her about Sustainable Menstruation practices and she seemed very approachable. Since a lot of young women in the villages use sanitary napkins. The disposal of used sanitary napkins is creating a menace in cities, in spite of the waste management systems being in place. In villages, this is creating a bigger disaster, with a potential to contaminate water sources. Hence, Radhika briefed the Sarpanch on cloth pads as well as menstrual cup and its usage. 

Potatoes left to dry

Another thing observed was though the villagers have good access to LPG supply, every house had a traditional Chulha working on fuelwood. Here I briefly spoke about Samuchit's smokeless cookstoves. The Sarpanch was quite keen on this. The village women seemed open to change their day to day practices for betterment of their quality of life. 

I was fascinated to know that the villages were self sustaining from livelihood perspective due to the interventions by PepsiCo under the Contract Farming Agreement for growing potatoes. All the villagers were involved in this market driven agricultural practice. Though this looks like a win win situation, growing the same crop every year, in order to cater to the urban luxury market needs (and thereby neglecting local food security) may have several adverse consequences. It may cause soil quality degradation and environmental impacts due to lack of diversification in crops in the long run. Also in the face of climate change, the lack of local food security may increase vulnerability of the communities. As the monsoon pattern is totally being affected by climate change, agriculture across India is greatly affected. This may lead to larger fluctuations in food prices going ahead. Growing sufficient food for own consumption is therefore a better strategy for a farming community. 

Discussion on Sustainable Menstruation

However, the villagers seemed to be very happy for their improved standard of living, and seemed less bothered about the cost of INR 3,000,000/- every month from January to June/July to tanker in water for domestic use. Currently the local government is bearing the cost, but this is an unsustainable practice. Here the setup of Rooftop rainwater harvesting systems installed through the inputs of Col. Dalvi and Mr. Todkar play a crucial role. The rooftop rainwater harvesting systems were set such that they recharged the existing borewells, which would help recharge the aquifer and raise the groundwater level. It is expected that this will at least partially if not fully fulfill the water requirements of the villagers during the next summer season. 

I felt that corporates like PepsiCo come to such villages with attractive proposals without giving any consideration to the prevailing ecological and social conditions in the village. Such villages turn to be neither a village nor a city, but get stuck somewhere in between. 

Traditional fuelwood cookstoves

Col. Dalvi believes that rain water harvesting is just a beginning. We can slowly support these villages into becoming self sustaining, socially, ecologically and economically.  Since the villagers are open to new ideas and are ready to make the shift, I felt its worthwhile to undertake a few sessions on specific topics with the villagers. Another woman Sarpanch Mrs Manisha Totre also met her along with local ASHA workers and members of women's SHGs. They are also keen to host us for a session on Sustainable menstruation and smokeless cooking stoves soon.  

Discussion on smokeless cookstoves

Overall it was great visit, the weather was in our favour - it was pleasant and did not rain. Five of us had interesting discussions on overall environmental issues related to w

aste management and political outlook. 

I am thankful to Shivam for organizing this visit and Col. Dalvi for his enthusiasm in explaining to us the overall system and my fellow colleagues for interesting discussions. 

Pournima Agarkar.

www.samuchit.com

My City My Responsibility - Rainwater Harvesting

Dear All, 

Last week we saw, how a terrace gardening initiative can make our lives simply Sustainable. Similarly we are going to see more of such initiatives and one such initiative is rooftop rainwater harvesting.

I am sure everyone has heard about harvesting rainwater, however one may find it difficult to implement it in an existing set up. Or may find it a tedious and a costly affair or may be you think you don't need to harvest rainwater since you have enough water today. Kindly note that the benefits of harvesting rainwater are not limited to an individual, they are linked to all of us locally as well as globally.   

Let us look at a local initiative undertaken by a retired military official Col. Shashikant Dalvi in his society. In 2002, Col.Dalvi shifted to a society in viman nagar after his retirement, he became the Chairman of the society. While reviewing the annual and monthly bills of the society, he saw that the society is spending maximum on water due to the use of water tankers. At that time, PMC water supply was inadequate in the area and hence the society depended on water tankers for fulfilling their water demands. Though there was one bore well in the society, it had lower levels of water and could run only for half an hour and hence was not used. Col. Dalvi realized that temporary investments in water tanker was not a long term solution. So he learnt about rooftop rainwater harvesting and thought of using the freely available natural resource i.e. rainwater. Though rainwater is available making it usable water it needs to be harnessed.

www.parjanyarwh.com

Col. Dalvi initially tried using only 1/3rd of the terrace area for collecting rainwater and saw the amount of rainwater that could be harvested. He found that the society could cut down on 50% of their water tanker usage. So in 2003, he made arrangements to collect entire terrace water in an underground tank through pipes and a primary filter (jali). This resulted in zero usage of water tankers in the society. The tentative cost of setting up such an initiative in their society was approx. Rs. 50-70 per sq.ft at that time which is a one time cost. As per the PMC scheme, the society received a 5% rebate on property tax for implementing rooftop rainwater harvesting. This project inspired many societies around and they installed rooftop rainwater harvesting system. National Water Academy, Pune has included a visit to Col Dalvi's housing society as a part of their course syllabus to study the functioning of the project. Also its noteworthy that the water levels in their bore well increased and it could run for six to eight hours now due to percolation of water. 

Rainwater harvesting system ensures healthy and clean usable water for all, even for those who are dependent on groundwater sources. In case if you want to harness your rainwater, you can contact Col S.G Dalvi at 9860577364 or visit his organization Parjanya rainwater harvesting consulting at www.parajyarwh.com 

Pournima Agarkar.

P.S. While buying a new home just ensure if the building has rooftop rainwater harvesting system.