Runoff from rooftops saves rainwater for housing society

Initiative of Nisarg Darshan Society residents to save water helped other areas, too

Out of the 900 residential societies in Pimpri-Chinchwad area, Nisarg Darshan Society in Sector 26 of Nigdi-Pradhikaran stands out. The residents do not worry if there is a shortage of water supply.
They have in place a water harvesting project. For a good 13 years, the housing society has been storing rainwater runoff from roofs in underground tanks. They use the water for household purposes, and also for drinking. Nisarg Darshan is the only housing society in Pimpri-Chinchwad that has adopted the method.
It benefits not only the residents of Nisarg Darshan Society, but several other areas as well, which otherwise would not get supply water.
Soon after the housing society was established, residents faced water shortage as it was located at a higher altitude. The idea of implementing the rainwater harvesting project was mooted. Rain water from the terraces is not allowed to waste. It is collected through pipes monsoon in underground storage tanks for use .
“For four months during monsoon, we keep our terrace closed. It is washed with bleaching power and kept as clean as possible. When rainwater is collected during monsoon, it is channelled through pipes into the underground storage tank,” said Dilip Pandey, secretary of the housing society that has 67 flats in four buildings.
The housing society not only uses water stored in underground tanks for household purposes, but also for drinking.
“We do not have to depend on PCMC water for drinking purposes. We have installed two filters in underground tanks that ensure residents get clean water,” says Pandey. The water harvesting project, when it was set up, cost only Rs 23,000.
The project brought big savings for residents.
“For four months during monsoon, we don’t use PCMC water. That means, we do not incur any water bill which otherwise used to be upwards of 70,000 (for the colony) every six months. Secondly, the PCMC, instead of supplying water to our society, supplies it to other areas in Nigdi-Pradhikaran which otherwise would have been deprived of their quota,” said Pandey.
“We fill the underground tank to the brim. At least 80,000 litres is required for that,” said another society resident.
PCMC executive engineer Ramdas Tambe said the society has set an example in saving precious water.
“It is a unique initiative,” Pandey said that in fact, the initiative was taken by Pravin Ladkat, executive engineer of PCMC, when he used to stay in the society.
Santosh Marne, who runs the Rainbow Rainwater Harvesting Consultancy, said what Nisarg Darshan society has done, no one else has adopted.
“Several societies have installed the system. But only in Nisarg Darshan, they use water both for drinking and household purposes. And they have been doing it without any problem for years,” he said.
Residents in Nisarg Darshan Society are now waiting for rain. “We are ready to collect water on our terrace. This time, the rain seems to be late, but it will rain anytime now…”

Manoj Dattatrye More

Manoj More has been working with the Indian Express since 1992. For the first 16 years, he worked on the desk, edited stories, made pages, wrote special stories and handled The Indian Express edition. In 31 years of his career, he has regularly written stories on a range of topics, primarily on civic issues like state of roads, choked drains, garbage problems, inadequate transport facilities and the like. He has also written aggressively on local gondaism. He has primarily written civic stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad, Khadki, Maval and some parts of Pune. He has also covered stories from Kolhapur, Satara, Solapur, Sangli, Ahmednagar and Latur. He has had maximum impact stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad industrial city which he has covered extensively for the last three decades. Manoj More has written over 20,000 stories. 10,000 of which are byline stories. Most of the stories pertain to civic issues and political ones. The biggest achievement of his career is getting a nearly two kilometre road done on Pune-Mumbai highway in Khadki in 2006. He wrote stories on the state of roads since 1997. In 10 years, nearly 200 two-wheeler riders had died in accidents due to the pathetic state of the road. The local cantonment board could not get the road redone as it lacked funds. The then PMC commissioner Pravin Pardeshi took the initiative, went out of his way and made the Khadki road by spending Rs 23 crore from JNNURM Funds. In the next 10 years after the road was made by the PMC, less than 10 citizens had died, effectively saving more than 100 lives. Manoj More's campaign against tree cutting on Pune-Mumbai highway in 1999 and Pune-Nashik highway in 2004 saved 2000 trees. During Covid, over 50 doctors were asked to pay Rs 30 lakh each for getting a job with PCMC. The PCMC administration alerted Manoj More who did a story on the subject, asking then corporators how much money they demanded....The story worked as doctors got the job without paying a single paisa. Manoj More has also covered the "Latur drought" situation in 2015 when a "Latur water train" created quite a buzz in Maharashtra. He also covered the Malin tragedy where over 150 villagers had died. Manoj More is on Facebook with 4.9k followers (Manoj More), on twitter manojmore91982 ... Read More

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