While tankers ferry water
to meet the daily needs of
the residences of Tamil
Nadu’s ministers and high
court judges on Greenways
Road in South Chennai, there
is a colony of more than 100
flats across the road that is
self-sufficient in its water
needs. The residents of
Hiranya Apartments make
do with a well that they
have assiduously protected,
maintained and recharged
over three decades.
“We have two borewells
too, but they are used only
after making sure that every
drop of rainwater gets
recharged into the ground.
We have kept the water level
in the well above five feet,
even during the current
crisis, by cutting the daily
supply by almost 40 per
cent,” says Raghunandan,
secretary of the Hiranya flat
owners’ association.
The almost six-acre area ofthe complex is pockmarked
with recharge pits of varying
depths. There is a cement
grating on the two main
gates that traps the water
and sends it to another set
of recharge pits. “Not a drop
is wasted,” says estate
manager Rajesh. “This
is possibly one of the few
complexes in the city that
is not visited by tankers.”
This inspired a neighbouring
complex to adopt massive
rainwater harvesting, and dig
three shallow wells, which
have yielded water for over
a decade. “Though there is
a law that makes harvesting
mandatory in existing and
new complexes, it is not
enforced. Many flat
promoters do a shoddy job
too,” says Shekar Raghavan
of Rain Centre, which has
pioneered water harvesting
in the city.
Indrakumar, a resident of
Pammal, a Chennai suburb,chennai Harvest
according to Thakkar, there is the demand for Renuka Dam
and Sharda-Yamuna river-linking to address the demand.
Look at the state of affairs in Chennai, which was touted
as a shining example of solving its water crisis through
rainwater harvesting. It too went through a crisis after the
failure of the northeast monsoon in 2018. “About 50 per
cent of harvesting installations have to be improved,” says
Dr Sekhar Raghavan, director of the Chennai Rain Centre.
“Things could have been worse in Chennai, but for success-
ful initiatives in many high-rise complexes. This awareness
needs to spread across the country too.”Rural stress
Free power, which was meant to help farmers, has proved
to be a major disservice to the agriculture sector. Thanks to
this, the crop-growers draw huge quantities of groundwa-
ter, which depletes the water table fast. In addition, market
dynamics work against efforts to wean them away from
water-guzzling crops like sugarcane and paddy. Take the
case of Marathwada, which, despite the severe droughts,
has witnessed a huge increase in the area under sugarcane
cultivation. “We are not using available resources properly
as there is hardly any management or rules and regulation,”
Purandare warns. “In Marathwada, we had record sugar
production this year. This should be opposed, but is not
happening. Actually, it is a cruel game as the dams in
Marathwada have little water due to droughts, and farmers
use groundwater. This fast depletion, with no recharging,
can lead to desertification.”36 OutlOOk 5 august 2019