Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Get ready to collect rain water this monsoon

Many of us had ever tried keeping bucket in terrace for the rain water to fill in our childhood days. Do you have ever seen well in anyone’s house premises? It is the traditional way of storing rain water in almost every house in India. The most important aspect of well was that it was used for all the purpose which includes drinking to washing. It may be surprising to listen about it in terms of hygiene but believe it or not it was considered good for all purpose.
Those days are gone when we were not facing as much water issues as we are finding it today. We all know that there is something called ‘water crises’ which we are all familiar with. But do everyone really aware of water problems? In our daily life, many times we hear our parents telling us not to waste water, how many of us has this habit of using minimum water for our maximum uses?
There are simply many questions which may strike to our mind but what are the answers to these problems is again a big question?  Eighty-five per cent of India’s city population has access to drinking water while only 20 per cent of the drinking water is healthy to consume. If the misuse and ignorance with ground water carry on, then as per the Estimations of the Central Ground Water Board, the underground water will go dry entirely by 2025 in near about fifteen States of India. 
 There are many simple ways to start rain water harvesting which will not only help in saving water but can also lead to environmental revolution. There are several methods in which each and every individual can put their small effort to get rid of this major problem of water.
Rain water harvesting is an artificial way of collecting water only when rain occurs. It can be collected from roof top, lakes, tanks etc.
Roof top: In this type of water storage system, tanks are attached through pipes near the roofs of houses so that all the water fall on roof can easily get collected in the big tanks. The tanks of water usually exist in the terrace and directly connected to all the taps of house through pipes. Even these water tanks can also be connected to roof then water can be collected not only in the harvesting tanks but the terrace tanks as well.
Lake: lakes are both natural and artificial. Artificial lake is area filled with water which has lands on sides. The construction of lake is done for agricultural and industrial use. The rain water directly falls on the lakes and the level of water rises as the rain falls on it.
Tanks: tanks are the most common water storage system of present scenario. It is the storage system of water in big tanks either on the terrace or on the ground so that rain water can be collected into it.

The benefits of rain water harvesting:
The stored water can be used in summers for all the basic household as well as industrial purpose. The collected water can be used to recharge the bore wells through pipes connected to both tanks as well as bore well. This will help underground water to not to go dry. One do not has to depend on the water supply timings. The stored water can be used anytime. It also used to water the plants so that good amount of water can be directly used for many big and small purposes. These days government takes water charges for giving water service to their homes, industries etc. if you have your own water storing system, the water bill may reduce.
In Indian, good amount of rainfall occurs every year but on the other hand many rivers and reservoirs are drying up and getting polluted from industrial and other waste. So due to lack of proper public water storage systems, the major water crises are taking place.
There are several video clips made to create water awareness among the citizens of India like bacha bacha ke, barso re, rain drops are falling, tera mera mat kar.
If we talk about conserving water and the recharge of ground water, In February 2009 the government of Karnataka made it compulsory for all the buildings to make arrangement for rain water harvesting.it included residential sites, which has an area of more than 2400 sq ft (40 x 60 ft) should create this plan as per law.
Vishal, a BBM student says that he has studied a lot about environmental problems in school days. “There was a time when I used to study EVS in class six but now I felt about the real need of protecting ourselves by saving each and every drop of water” adds Vishal. 
A student from Bangalore, Kiran feels that wasting water is like wasting money. “Whenever I see water flowing here and there without any reason, I feel too bad when I cannot do anything to save that water”.

 Even if the government is not able to help in rain water harvesting, student’s contribution can lead to a great matter of inspiration not only for their family but also for reforming society as well. It also leads people to make them aware of saving water by different traditional as well as modern methods in their households. Once it will start working, many relatives, friends as well as neighbours will keen to know about the system and by this way it can be one of effective process in saving water.

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