HYDERABAD: Every time it rains in Hyderabad, thousands of litres of water flow off rooftops, roads and open spaces into drainage systems instead of replenishing groundwater. While water conservation often becomes a talking point during summer, Ranga Prasad, founder of HydRainHarvest, believes the effort must begin long before the monsoon.
Over the past decade, he has worked to change this and implemented more than 600 rainwater harvesting and groundwater recharge structures across Hyderabad.
His journey began in 2015, when the city faced a severe water crisis following two consecutive years of poor rainfall. While running an organic food business and a fitness and yoga centre in Gachibowli, Prasad struggled to find a professional to install a rainwater recharge pit at his leased premises.
Having campaigned on climate change since 2009, he decided to make water conservation his primary focus and started a rainwater harvesting business in November 2016. “I felt that there were enough awareness groups, but very few people were actually implementing solutions on the ground. I wanted to move from awareness to action,” he told TNIE.
He travelled across the country to attend training programmes and workshops, gaining practical knowledge of designing and maintaining recharge structures. Renovating old, clogged pits taught him how accumulated silt blocks water from reaching aquifers and how poor design and maintenance render many structures ineffective. This experience shaped his approach. “A recharge structure should not work well only for the first two or three years. It should be designed in such a way that it can be maintained and remain functional for the next 20 to 25 years,” he added.
Despite Hyderabad receiving an average annual rainfall of around 810 mm, Prasad believes poor planning, inadequate infrastructure and lack of maintenance result in substantial water loss. He estimates that only 350 out of every 1,000 houses have rainwater harvesting pits and that nearly 97% of residents do not maintain them regularly, defeating the purpose of such structures.
Many pits are undersized or clogged, causing excess rainwater to flow into drainage systems instead of percolating underground. He also pointed out construction practices in which some contractors divert only 25% of rooftop rainwater into recharge pits, sending the remaining 75% into drains.
The challenge, he said, is to ensure that structures are properly sized, connected and maintained. Yet most residents approach him for installations only during the monsoon, between June 10 and September 30. He believes rainwater harvesting must be a year-round priority rather than a response to water shortages.
Convincing apartment complexes and gated communities to adopt collective rainwater harvesting remains a challenge, as projects often require agreement among several owners. However, Prasad said residents who initially question the idea often become advocates after seeing the results.
One of his notable projects was in a gated community spread across more than 40 acres in Kokapet. It involved four large recharge structures with silt traps and 40 individual recharge systems, taking nearly two months to complete.
Some clients have reported a reduction in monthly water tanker requirements from around 100 to 25-30 after installing recharge systems. Although he does not have consolidated groundwater data to establish the impact of all 600-plus projects, he considers the reduced dependence on tankers encouraging.
He believes the greatest impact can come from bringing entire neighbourhoods under coordinated water conservation plans rather than relying on individual households.
An experiment
Taking this approach forward, HydRainHarvest is planning a one-square-kilometre demonstration project in Hyderabad. The idea is to bring buildings within a selected area together to capture rainwater from rooftops, roads, parks and other open spaces.
In a 20-acre residential colony, rooftops may account for only 8–9 acres, with the remaining area comprising roads, parks and common spaces. Prasad believes rainwater from these areas must also be channelled towards recharge structures instead of drainage networks.
The selected area would serve as a demonstration centre for neighbouring communities to study and replicate the model.
Prasad is also exploring affordable greywater filtration systems to facilitate groundwater recharge beyond the monsoon season. The proposed systems would cater to individual houses on plots of up to 200 square yards and apartments spread across 500 to 2,000 square yards, particularly where installing sewage treatment plants is financially unviable. The systems are still to be developed and tested against applicable standards.
He also plans to train more professionals in rainwater harvesting, citing the need for skilled people to design, install and maintain recharge structures.
His efforts recently earned him the Pride of Telangana Award in the Sustainability category. For Prasad, the larger goal is to make rainwater harvesting an everyday practice rather than something residents remember only when water runs short.
He urged households to repair leaking taps and faulty flush tanks, install alarms to prevent overhead tank overflow and fit automatic ball cocks in underground sumps. Closing angle valves supplying flush tanks and health faucets wherever practical can also prevent wastage. “I believe every human being on Earth should take up one issue and work on it in their own square kilometre. For me, that issue became water,” Prasad said.
