HYDERABAD: One thing the Thursday night rain taught the Hyderabadis is the importance of preserving water. The parched city can be self-sufficient for a month if rain water can be tapped and utilised.
Residents of Madhapur and Kondapur have managed to save thousands of litres of water under 'direct borewell recharge' method by which rainwater can be tapped, used and the excess water diverted to recharge borewells.
“In our colony we have hundreds of rainwater harvesting pits and just one good rain is enough to make them overflow. So, we have adopted the method and have a dozen such systems in the colony. With good rains last week, the borewells at these houses are yielding water again,” Vadlamudi Muralidhar, president of Gautami Enclave, said.
Vishal Anand, a resident, said, “The heavy rain on Thursday was a boon as I stored some 20,000 litres in a tank and sent the excess into the borewell which recharged the ground water.”
Seeing the success story of this enclave, a group of techies have come up with a spirited mission to recharge 10,000 borewells with rain water by the end of June.
“We have lakhs of borewells in the city but we are not backfilling or recharging the ground water. We have very few recharge structures and it's high time we woke up,” Ramesh Loganathan, president of Hyderabad Software Exporters Association, said.
“Rain water pit is not an effective solution as the city has granitic and rocky soil in many areas, because of which water absorption is minimal and bores do not get recharged easily. But rain filter is the answer as it sends water directly into the bore and results in immediate recharging of ground water,” said R Sai Prasad, CEO of Greenhabitat.