Drain
the Collected Rainwater and Used Water into Ground
We must at our individual level save the water by reducing the consumption
as much as possible. The water leaks, excessive flow of water in flushes,
and "shower facilities" for bathing are some of the unjustifiable
wastage of water. Although, a lot of building came up in Chennai in
the last two decades, we must not ignore the fact that rainwater falls
on the area over these buildings anyway. The only change because of
these constructions is that the rainwater now rolls into streets and
then into street canals. The ultimate destination for this water is
now the Bay of Bengal rather than the ground. We must try to catch
the rainwater on the terrace of every building by fixing a trough
with reasonable depth on the terrace. This trough can be made of cheap
and light material. The water collected in this terrace trough can
be purified using alum and chlorine bleach, and can be directly connected
to the water tank on the terrace. Otherwise, the water collected in
this trough can be directed through a drainpipe into the drilled hole
within the building for pebble percolation into the ground. All the
right thinking people should make a provision in their houses to direct
all the used water (except the toilet water) to the ground through
a drilled hole. An additional percentage tax should be levied along
with property tax for complete concrete flooring/construction within
a premise. The toilet water alone should be directed to the septic
tank and drained into municipal canal or gutter. The government should
encourage people to come forward and install these facilities in their
buildings by waiving 5-10% of the property tax per annum. The loss
in exchequer because of such tax waiver would tantamount to a meager
percentage of the money spent on temporary solutions or centralized
mega projects. It would not be unjustifiable if the government passes
a regulation that if a construction is made by not adhering to some
of the above guidelines, it would either be penalized or the building
would not be given the water connection.
Exnora Type Collection of Used water
Few years back, people would have laughed at the idea of collecting
the garbage from every door to facilitate the streamlined disposal
of waste. Here, the suggestion is that if the house does not have
the facility to direct the used water into the ground, through the
drilled holes, the water used for washing cloths and utensils from
these houses/buildings should be collected in the drums given by say
an NGO/Municipal Corporation. These drums would be taken to a central
place where the packed bed kind of filtration would be carried out
to remove all the dirt and surface active detergents. This filtered
water would then be purified. This purified water would then be recycled
through the Municipal water tanks. Before ridiculing this idea, one
must keep in mind that more than two thirds of the water used by a
household is for cloths and utensil cleaning, and for bathing purpose.
We planned a 1200 crore Krishna water project. Then and there, we
talk about "artificial rains" to massage our science ego. They did
not solve the water problem of Chennai. Now, we talk about a multi
crore "Revised Veeranam" project. These are ample evidences to conclude
that we must adopt few de-centralized practices to augment our water
requirement in Chennai. These steps would not only be cost-effective
but would also give the desired results. We must gear up to the prevailing
pathetic situation sooner than later, otherwise the situation would
go from bad to worse and would also evade all our strategies.