Despite the rapid progress in technology, especially gadgets, water was always been the primary issue in the country, now when it comes to summer, the situation turns worse. The heavy population, reduced rainfalls, requirements beyond the availability, pollution, all these are the basic barricades one has to break and in doing this, certain series of plans must be made and implemented in a specified manner.
Summer has already hit the doors of our colonies and in very few days the scarcity hits, and this time it sounds like the issue is going to be far tougher than the earlier years. In accordance to the scarcity, the demand has become high, the respective municipalities have to surge the price of water in order to fulfill the deeds of everyone respectively.
Contrary to the story that was decades ago, the water bill is something that almost tallies with electric bills, the price of water has increased so much that it almost swallows a considerable part of peoples’ income.
Now, here’s a standout personality who has not been paying a penny to the authorities for water, he didn’t disobey the municipality, nor lived without water, this man, AR ShivKumar, a senior scientist from Bengaluru has his way of fulfilling his water needs which everyone must appreciate.
Beating the odds, Shivkumar believes that there’s always an enough room for water, and all one has to do is handle things carefully.
This senior scientist at the Karnataka State Council Of Science and Technology (KSCST) at Indian Institute of Science (IISc) believes that if water is managed properly and rainwater harvesting is done in a planned manner, no city in the country will suffer water crisis.
He has been fulfilling his and his family’s water requirements through RWH only for over 20 years now which is quite astonishing.
In order to fulfill this, Shivakumar even invented few tools and collaborated with few other local departments for precise results.
From the very beginning, i.e; in 1995, when he started building his house, he started making plans for the water management system without roping in any problems to the environment. Firstly, he examined the water bills of his neighbors to find out how much water is needed for an average family per day.
To his surprise, his calculations actually got tallied with the water consumption norms given by WHO, which is 500 LTR water is used by a family of four per day. After this, he examined the rainfall data of Bengaluru for the last 100 years and acknowledged that the city had always received enough rainfall, even in those years in which monsoon was less than normal.
Meanwhile, here’s a problem, in general, it rains for 60-70 days throughout the year and we actually need water for 365 days. For this, conservation is needed.
When asked about this, Shivakumar said:
“I did some calculations and realized that the gap between two good showers of rain is seldom more than 90 to 100 days. So I built a series of RWH tanks that could store almost 45,000 liters of water to tide over these 100-odd days. Also, to ensure that a motor was not needed, I stored the water on the rooftop to avoid it being sent down and pumped up again.”
In a bid to attain pure water, he also attested the filter equipment through the tanks. These filters are known as Pop-Up Filter and they have been patented in his name. In addition to this, he also made ‘First Flush Lock and Diverter’ for big buildings and they serve the same purpose as Pop-Up Filter.
Water used in the washing machine is again used for flushing toilets while water used in the kitchen is used for gardening. The senior scientist has also used solar energy in his household to keep water hot and for lightening purposes as well. And he is also saving on his electricity bills as the rooftop tanks and the garden are keeping his house cool in the hottest summers.