A strong spell of rain this past week and a few residents of R.K.Nagar who were have sunk rainwater harvesting structures at their houses have started reaping the benefits of it.
A few weeks ago, when Chennai Corporation officials visited these houses to inspect their RWH structures, the residents said they were buying water from Metro Water.
As there was low rainfall, the residents had to buy water even though they had proper rainwater harvesting systems in place.
But now, Lalitha Rangachari a resident of this R.K.Nagar Second Cross Street says after the recent rains, they have not felt the need to buy water.
“We usually buy water every fortnight, but just after a week’s rain, we have been able to save around 5000-6000 liters of water using our RWH structures that were built in the year 2003. This water will be enough for us till this month-end, and we don’t have to buy another tanker for now.”
On Tuesday evening, when it rained steadily water was seen gushing through the PVC pipe of the RWH structure and flowing into the drum after a filtration.”Inside the drum, we have made a sedimentation bed with pebbles, charcoal, and sand for the water to get filtered,” said Lalitha.
The filtered water flows into the sump, which has a capacity to hold 12000 liters of water.”Once that gets filled, we divert the water to our overhead tank through the valves. The surplus water after filling the overhead tank flows to the 25ft deep RWH well structure in our backyard and recharges the groundwater.”
Her neighbour S. Rangarajan uses the rainwater almost directly without any filtration.
Explained Rangarajan, “I clean my terrace regularly and I feel that leaves the water clean. The collected water from the rooftop goes through a small mesh filter before it gets collected in the open well at my back yard. From there the water is later pumped to the overhead tank using a motor.”
Rangarajan, who sunk the RWH structure in 2006 has also seen a rise in the water level in his open well after the recent rains. “The water level would have risen by at least by one and a half feet after these rains,” he says.
Two good examples of tapping the rain, however brief be the spell this season.
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