With a greater part of the country facing the parched reality of a drought, rainwater harvesting seems to hold the answer to water woes of millions of countrymen. Tribune reporters examine why this scheme has not been a success in spite of government thrust

Vibha Sharma
IF India manages to catch just 2 per cent of the annual rainfall it receives, one billion people in the country can be provided 100 litres per person per day, throughout the year.

A family of five (not referring to people in urban areas who are water guzzlers) requires six to seven litres of potable water for drinking and cooking everyday, which comes to around 10,000 to 12,000 litres in a year.

If rainwater harvesting is carried out in a scientific manner on a large scale in Delhi, 450 billion litres of potable water, almost one third of the metro’s total requirement, can be collected. This is the limitless potential of the simple technique of collecting rainwater to augment groundwater in your vicinity.

The concept of rainwater harvesting can be best illustrated through this simple but astonishing fact. Salahuddin Saiphy of the Center for Science and Environment (CSE), which has done some pioneering work in rainwater harvesting in Delhi, says ideally the desert township of Barmer in Rajasthan should not have been inhabited at all. The reason being that Barmer barely gets four to five days of rainfall in a year, a mere average of 277 mm. But the district, that has faced drought for 47 years in the past 60 years, still is one of the most densely populated desert areas in the world.

The reason is that the rural population is largely dependent on traditional water-harvesting structures for fulfilling its need for drinking water.

Therefore, even though the groundwater is abysmally low in the district, sufficient amount of rainwater is stored in storage tanks for annual domestic water requirement and substantial recharge takes place during the four to five days of rain that the area receives every year. This way people fulfill their water requirement almost for the entire year, he says.

So if a desert township can do it, others should be doing it better. But are they?

Official version

Water is a state subject as per the Centre. However, regulatory measures are in place for making rooftop rainwater harvesting mandatory.

Water Resources Minister Pawan Bansal explains that so far 18 states and four union territories have made rooftop-rainwater harvesting mandatory.

These include Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Goa, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Nagaland, Punjab, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Tripura, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, West Bengal, Chandigarh, Daman and Diu, Delhi and Puducherry. Megahalaya, Arunachal Pradesh, Orissa, Jharkhand, Lakshadweep and Andaman and Nicobar are also in the process of making such provision, while Chhattisgarh, Sikkim, Mizoram, Assam, J&K, Manipur and Dadra and Nagar Haveli have not initiated any action in this regard, he adds.

The reality

Thus as per the official records it is seemingly a very positive situation and ideally a majority of the people in maximum places should not be having any water woes.

But despite efforts and schemes floated by the government people have not responded as they, should have.

Saiphy says except, perhaps for Delhi, Indore and Chennai, where some headway appears to have been made on the front with the efforts of the respective administrations and local people, nowhere else has the concept of saving rainwater for "rainy days" is being followed seriously.

Indira Khurana of WaterAid says there are close to 2,000 water-related schemes in the country and crores of rupees are being pumped in for water projects by the Centre and state governments every year.

That the government’s way of ensuring drinking water coverage in the country is not working the way it should have, is best illustrated by the fact that in 2005 the rural water coverage was 95 per cent. Ideally it should have gone up to 100 per cent by March 31 this year — the deadline. Shockingly, instead of being 100 per cent complete, the rural water coverage has now slipped to 67 per cent.

Reasons are simple. Some sources dried up, as there was a decrease in the groundwater level. Infrastructure put in by the government, like hand pumps and tubewells, failed to work due to lack of maintenance. Increase in population and increasing industrial and agricultural pressure on groundwater are some of the other factors.

The economic loss for lack of safe drinking water is huge, almost $6,300 million per year, and the simple practice of rainwater harvesting can make all the difference irrespective of drought and rain, Khurana says, drawing a parallel between groundwater and bank account. "One really does have to be a rocket scientist to understand that just like your bank account, your groundwater will also deplete if you do not recharge it," she says.

Urban guzzlers

Urban areas are water guzzlers and increasingly water sources are moving further and further away. The water source for Delhi has moved up to Tehri dam, almost 300 km from the Capital — the same distance a rural woman covers in a year to fetch water for her house. Guidelines, however, are clear that no woman should walk more than 1.5 km to fetch water.

Demand for water is growing in most cities as every urban citizen requires almost double the amount of water that a rural citizen requires.

Urban population in India has grown almost five times in five decades from 62.44 million in 1951 to 286.08 million in 2001. Most of our cities were self-sufficient in meeting their water needs from the extensive urban water bodies to supply water to citizens, but now these water bodies have completely disappeared. Municipalities have been stretched to the limits to find water for the growing urban population. Groundwater is being extracted by the government as well as private parties, says Saiphy.

Citizens’ responsibility

Anybody doing water harvesting should also understand that he may not be able to reap immediate benefits but long-term benefits will definitely be there. There may also be this heartburn that while you are harvesting water, your neighbour is using it all. But as Saiphy says, you, too, may be benefiting from someone else’s effort. Moreover, the groundwater in your vicinity will show positive results eventually.

Khurana says traditionally water was seen as the responsibility of citizens and the community collectively took the responsibility of not only building but also of maintaining water bodies. Later, the government took control of water-bodies and water supply. This led to the neglect of water bodies and catchments areas as people became detached from them and become used to getting water at the turn of a tap. "Earlier people used to go to river banks, lakes and wells as part of their daily routine," she adds

Delhi started rainwater harvesting in 2001 after Ministry of Urban Development and Poverty Alleviation made it mandatory for all buildings to implement rainwater harvesting system with more than 100 sq m rooftop area.

"Progress has been slow due to different reasons but things are picking up.

A political casualty N Ravikumar from Chennai Strange are the ways of politics. A change of government in Tamil Nadu almost always means scrapping or neglect of the successful and laudable schemes started by the previous government. This seems to be the case with the rainwater-harvesting scheme introduced by the previous government. The scheme had showed the desired results — increasing the ground-water table by more than two metres in a single year in all the major cities in the state. Rainwater harvesting has been made mandatory in Chennai but not everyone is following the regulations Photo: Jayakanthan Now, there is no status report available with the local bodies or the Tamil Nadu Water Supply and Drainage Board on the number of buildings that had constructed the rain water harvesting (RWH) structures. The local bodies and TWAD Board, which is supposed to monitor the construction of RWH structures, does not have a report on the number of violations either. There is not a single case of punishment for building owners for lack of rainwater harvest structures, even though, most of the new buildings that had been constructed in the city’s suburbs do not have the structures. Although, the RWH structures that were put in place in city’s buildings, due to strict implementation and monitoring during the previous regime, can hold for a few years, the authorities have not visited any building to inspect the condition of the structures now. Anyone living in the city can be unaware of the violations, since most of the buildings have a RWH structure at the moment. But, a visit to any of the city’s suburbs and the new buildings constructed last year, clearly reveals that rainwater harvesting structures have been ignored, since the authorities neither insist nor punish the violators. While most of the officials evaded a direct reply to the question as to why the owners of new buildings without RWH structures had not been punished, some officials said RWH structures are not mandatory and there was no provision for punishing the violators. But, Section 255-A (3) of the Tamil Nadu Municipal Laws (Second Amendment) Ordinance 2003, which facilitated RWH structures for buildings clearly states that "where the rainwater harvesting structure is not provided as required, the Commissioner or any person authorised by him may, after giving notice to the owner or occupier of the building, cause rainwater harvesting structure to be provided in such building and recover the cost of such provision along with the incidental expense thereof in the same manner as property tax". It further states "where the owner or occupier of the building fails to provide the rainwater harvesting structure in the building before the date as may be prescribed, the water supply connection provided to such building shall be disconnected till rainwater harvesting structure is provided". There is nothing to indicate that the new government had removed the mandatory clause. In fact, the policy note for 2006-2007, tabled by Local Administration Minister M. K Stalin in the state Assembly says, "The provision for rainwater structure has been made mandatory to all constructions through an amendment to relevant Acts, which will be strictly enforced", which clearly proves that RWH structures are compulsory and the new government, too, had declared that it should be enforced strictly. But, there is no mention of the rainwater harvesting scheme in the next two policy notes of the Municipal Administration and Water Supply Department, indicating that the scheme, which was hailed as an achievement of the previous government, has been ignored. The TWAD board, in its website, only says it would provide details for anyone who wants to implement the scheme. It does not have any data about the violators or the likely penalty. It has not carried out a study about the impact of the rainwater scheme also and no survey on the implementation of the scheme had been done in the last three years. The previous government was promoting awareness about RWH throughout the state by putting up posters in public places, preparing and distributing pamphlets and brochures in Tamil and English and producing and screening videos on RWH. In addition, a publicity van was specially made by the Chennai Corporation to propagate RWH in various localities of Chennai. The new government had stopped all these activities, showing a clear disinterest in a scheme, which would augment the groundwater supply in the water-starved state.

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