Water harvesting has been a common agricultural practice in India since times immemorial. However, numerous factors seem to have led to a sheer neglect of the system causing devastating effects on agroeconomics of rural India. The situation is really alarming in Rajasthan as the state is facing acute water scarcity due to poor ground water quality and lack of water resources. To deal with this problem, the Jaipur Development Authority (JDA) has begun constructing numerous water harvesting structures. These structures will trap the rain water flowing down the streets and help recharge the ground water. According to BD Sharma, superintending engineer of the JDA, “There are about 30 such water harvesting structures we are now constructing at various points in the city. While many of the projects are nearing completion, a few others have just started.” Seemingly unnoticeable, these structures have been built besides bus stands, gardens of deserted houses, near traffic islands and other less known places. The only thing that is noticeable is a green board announcing the presence of the structure. “We did not procure any land for these structures. These were built on lands that belonged to us. And we haven’t used any machine or power for running these water harvesting structure,” said Shivraj Singh, one of the junior engineers, JDA. Spending about Rs 1 crore, the 30 water-harvesting structures are estimated to help percolate about 50 lakh litres of water per rainfall at 1.5 to 2 lakh litres of water per structure. With more rainfalls, these structures will help percolate 15 crore litres of water per year. “We expect the life span of each of these structures to be around 20 years and that makes it about 300 crore litres of water recharged during that time. And since it cost Rs 1 crore, we would be spending just about 3 paise for recharging a litre of water,” added Singh. Working on a simple principal, these water harvesting structures consist of a water trapping system, a desilting unit and a filtration unit that has many baby wells with 6m in depth, which ultimately helps percolating the water deep down. “We identified the places where the rain water flows because of the natural gradient. Here, we built a pit and covered it with an iron grill to discard solid wastes,” explained Singh. The water flows to a desilting pit where mud and heavy wastes collect and then to another bigger unit or the filtration section. The bed of the filtration unit is covered with round pebbles and sand. The filtered water then drops into the baby wells built in the filtration unit and seeps down into the earth. In places where the water harvesting structure is near the street side ,an additional unit has been built in between the water trapping unit and the desilting unit near road sides for taking off diesel and other chemicals that may come because of the plying of vehicles. Such units exist near the Dharam Singh circle at the junction of the Moti Dungri road and the Govind Marg and at the Rambagh circle close to the bus stand along the road. “This is just the beginning. We will build more such structures across the city. JDA is the first in Rajasthan to build such structures for trapping rain water that goes wasted going down the drains over the years,” said executive engineer Manish Beniwal.
1 comment:
Rain water harvesting is best way to save water, it used for wash our vehicles also pets. we can easily use it for Refill fountains and fish ponds,swimming pool. This harvested water also very useful in industrial used.
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