| After a month- long period
of scorching heat in Jamshedpur, the Earth was completely parched. Then came torrential
rain on May 25. It was a relief for all the residents of the township. The rain fell in
sheets for a while. But after that downpour there was not a drop to be found if one wanted
to put it to use, except in Mr Anjan Ghosh’s house. He is among the select few in
Jamshedpur who has installed a Rain Water Harvesting structure. Jamshedpur today has enough water to cater to its
needs. But that does not mean that the water is here to stay. If the city does not plan
for the future, most likely it will suffer from a water crisis.
The state of Jharkhand gets an annual
average rainfall of 1400 mm. If each drop is saved it translates into a water harvesting
potential of 112 TMC, given that its area is 79,714 sq kilometres.
Merely going by the water resources
available, that is 16 river basins, 29,335 ponds, 106 reservoirs and 1038 hectares of low
lying area, the state could well assume that it has water in abundance.
But already 13 of its districts have been
hit by drought. The state does have a traditional water harvesting system known as
“ahar”. However, the system has fallen into disuse and 95% of the rain water
that the state receives is wasted.
A mere 100mm of water captured on 1
hectare of land gives, believe it or not, 1 million litres of water. Therefore is all 1400
mm of rain were captured per hectare of land, the state would harvest 14 million litres of
water.
Even if half the water that the states
receives were to be harvested the urban areas must capture 12.28 TMC of water, as per the
area covered by town and cities. The 5.9 million urban dwellers of the state comprising
one-fifth its population could have 12280000000000 litres of water!
The need of the hour, therefore, is RAIN
WATER HARVESTING. |
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The water is collected via a pipeline on the roof top
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Mr. Anjan Ghosh acting well in time for his water needs
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