In 2002, after my retirement from the Indian Army, I
started studying rainwater harvesting & water conservation techniques in my spare time. I, then, executed
Pune’s first RWH project in our housing society, Green Land-2 Viman
Nagar. Our society had one bore-well with a limited yield of 30 minutes a day.
With limited water supply provided by the Pune Municipal Corporation, we needed
to buy 3 water tankers at a cost of Rs 1000 daily. However, with the
implementation of the RWH project, our tanker requirement became zero &
bore-well yield increased to 9 hours a day even during summers. This saved
recurring water costs & also helped us to obtain a 5 % property tax rebate
for all 57 flat owners in the society.
With this success, I created an NGO, Parjanya, in 2003 to promote this concept. Since then, we have helped more than 350
Housing Societies, Hospitals and other Organizations to tide over their water
problem by implementing customised RWH projects. All this has helped in
improving the ground water table in the project areas, and has provided
financial gains by reducing their expenditure on tanker water.
However, what I had not realised, was the unexpected
benefits of reducing Pune's Carbon footprint. As we all know, CO2 is one of the
biggest culprits in the issue of Climate Change. Take, for example, a case of
our society. Each water tankers travels 10KMs from water loading point to our
society. This means that each tanker had a round trip of 20KMs daily. We used
three tankers i.e. a total of 60 kilometres travelled in order to meet our
daily water needs. This translates into roughly 21,000KMs annually. All these
tankers use Diesel Fuel. With an average mileage of 8KM/Ltr, 2700Ltrs of Diesel
was being used to deliver water to us annually. One litre of diesel, when used
in a vehicle, releases 2.65KG of CO2.
Implementing RWH in our society reduced our carbon
footprint by 7100 KG / year !!
When I look at all of the 350 projects we have implemented
since 2003, there is a saving of nearly 2 Million Kilograms of CO2 reduced
each and every single year. When I started Parjanya, my intention was to
improve access to water. That I have been playing my part to reduce our impact
on climate change makes me feel extremely satisfied with my achievements.
Over the next few years, all countries will start making policies to reduce CO2 emissions. However, we, as citizens of India, and the world, have a duty to help reduce emissions wherever we can.
Over the next few years, all countries will start making policies to reduce CO2 emissions. However, we, as citizens of India, and the world, have a duty to help reduce emissions wherever we can.
I will play my part. If anyone needs any information on Rainwater Harvesting techniques, I shall freely provide all information and explain how it can be done. Visit my website at www.parjanya-rwh.com and contact me.
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