Water, water, nowhere! This photo was recently taken from my office, RMZ Echoworld, Bellandur! A Year back it was like this https://drive.google.com/open?id=1U7Y1zwyBx0i7gzDeP3BeyQTjPboZqjDU

Water: How Once Aryan’s Love Affair, Now Gone Horribly Wrong!

Samir Rakshit
Rakshit’s
Published in
4 min readMar 29, 2019

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<<This story is published in CitizenMatters and will be available on https://storysangam.com/3407-2/>>

Why did the Indo-Aryans expanded towards Indus Valley and then Ganges Plain? Why even the Dravidians also settled near the rivers?

With the serious water crisis we are facing, I think you have the answer already!

So, as the “TIME IS RUNNING OUT for US, LETS JUST DO What Is Critical for Our Survival”

Did you know?

“Groundwater is an important, decentralized source of drinking water for millions of people in India. It meets nearly 85% of rural domestic water needs and 50% of urban water needs [7]”

As per IISc, Bangalore, “Bengaluru May Turn Uninhabitable in Next Few Years”[9]

“Surprisingly, despite the record-setting rains this year(2017), the city’s groundwater levels have significantly worsened compared to last year. Experts have attributed this to borewell exploitation, concreting landscape, and erratic intensity of the rains(flash rains, remember flash flood in Chennai?).”[8]

Putting traditional ground water recharging pits, would not work in current situation. As in the case of any patient in serious condition, we need drips, food pipe to push medicine and other nutrition into the body directly, Rain Water Harvesting for Re-Use and Bore-well Recharge technique would do the same for reviving the ground water level quickly, reduce wastage of precious water, save money!

So, what is required is that we as citizens implement, this technique to make sure instead of sending all rain waters to polluted drains/lakes, reuse some and send some directly into the bore-well. Simple isn’t it!

Let’s see how we at SV Symphony, have invested in a simple method to Rain Water Harvesting for Re-Use and Bore-well Recharge and all other things:

2014-Nov: Contacted Mr. Ayyappa Masagi(Water Literacy Foundation). Everyone at SV Symphony had extended their support.

2015-April: Project “Rain Water Harvesting for Reuse and Bore-well Recharge completed”. (clean rain water for reuse: https://photos.app.goo.gl/zdBTrRX9ocjWddPh6)

2015-Dec: Saving of ~Rs. 2,72,000 in water bill. (https://drive.google.com/open?id=1XV9MZpw3rMCi2JJhuI98YKqiBru76hzu)

2016: We made sure STP is functioning properly and repaired the functional deficiencies.

2016: We closed down our swimming pool. When people are struggling for drinking water, very soon, individual swimming pool would be the thing of past!

2016–17: Added Aerators for our taps.

We are spreading the message but unless the pain is really felt a bit, there is no way you can make someone understand the severity of the problem! In neighborhood apartments we heard scary stories of water crisis, we heard stories of water tanker bidding, we heard stories of uncertain days and night! But would like to hear stories of implementing, “Rain Water Harvesting for Reuse and Bore-well Recharge” at their apartments and how it is helping them. And if most of the houses in Bangalore have this technology it can recover some of the damages we did by occupying the 85% lakes.

Though I am a pretty self motivated person, but if we all don’t act now we may be putting all of our life for a terrible terrible future, a future where water would be the cause of daily fights b/w neighbors, communities, neighborhoods, states and then escalating to war between the nations!!

And the most beautiful thing is, we have a solution in our hand to reverse this and give a better future for us and coming generation. So, can WE please Act Right Now?

References: What Do We Must Do?

1A.Contacts for Rain Water Re-Use and Bore-Well Recharge: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UQdiG6eB-sW3RgLIw_mLXQZRjDWYN_U94REZLSB8_c8/edit?usp=sharing

1B. Recharge Wells Primer(Everything you need to know, including contacts) http://bengaluru.urbanwaters.in/recharge-well-primer-398

2.SV Symphony Plan: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1l-v5-qDKNiYh6-wRO9pCO_dSe0RE06Xd

3.Community Example Like SV Symphony: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsL-BE8K-wI

4.Formula for Water Saving: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1rh5J-E9k9qxQDd_vW0AJwtBT3CdPtxDo

5A.Restoring and recharging wells must to deal with water crisis(S Vishwanath, a water activist): https://www.gaonconnection.com/news-in-english/restoring-and-recharging-wells-must-to-deal-with-water-crisis--45916

5B.Before the Flood, great documentary on Climate Change: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9xFFyUOpXo

6.H2wOe: India’s Water Crisis — Warning to the World: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjoykuhtOhg

7.Article Groundwater Level Dynamics in Bengaluru City, India

8. https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/karnataka/why-continuous-rain-failed-to-raise-groundwater-level-in-bengaluru/article20006721.ece

9. https://www.news18.com/news/india/on-verge-of-acute-water-crisis-bengaluru-may-turn-uninhabitable-in-next-few-years-warn-experts-2130111.html

10. Restoring and recharging wells must to deal with water crisis: https://www.gaonconnection.com/news-in-english/restoring-and-recharging-wells-must-to-deal-with-water-crisis--45916

Credits: Thanks everyone at SV Symphony supporting this cause. Specially, Mr. Marasami for sharing the statistics of water savings, helping me in implementing the project and spreading the message actively. Thanks to Giridhar for the idea and implementation of Aerators. Thanks to Siva for sharing the lakes photo taken a year back at the same time.

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