Water

Country Water Action: India
36 Roofs for 24/7 Water:
Harvesting Rainfall in Badlapur
December 2007

By Cezar Tigno
Web Writer, ADB

Unlike their counterparts on the other side of the world, children of Kulgaon-Badlapur town in Mumbai don’t wish for rain to go away. In fact, rain is an occasion for play. They watch raindrops spatter and gather on rain gutters, and flow on their roofs, following slopes and troughs, and they smile. They know they have water for another day.

Kulgaon-Badlapur, one of the faster growing towns in Mumbai, has taken the age-old tradition of rainwater harvesting to a whole new level.

In March 2007, Badlapur residents installed a rainwater harvesting demonstration unit in their town using modern methods unavailable to their ancestors. With rain gutters and pipes, they connected the roofs of 36 apartment buildings forming a system that captures and stores rainwater. An electric pump is used to pump water back into the buildings’ taps for everyday households' use. This was quite different from the system used by ancient peoples who lived in the Kanheri or Ajanta Ellora Caves or from the wells in Rameshwaram, Tamilnadu.

About 2,000 residents-beneficiaries now get water 24 hours a day, 7 days a week from Badlapur’s rainwater harvesting system, which provides about 100 liters per person per day—more than enough to meet washing, toileting, and other domestic water needs. It also unburdens the demand for water from the piped system, which is now only used for drinking and cooking purposes. A big plus of the system is that less water is taken from groundwater sources.

“The dramatic effect of this is the greening of Badlapur, especially our small park at the center of the pilot area,” says Nandkishor “Ram” Patkar proudly. Ram is the president of the Kulgaon-Badlapur Municipal Council (KBMC) that took charge of building the rainwater harvesting system.

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Monsoons are frequent visitors of the Indian state of Maharashtra, where Kulgaon-Badlapur sits on the Mumbai-Pune Railway track 60 kilometers away from Mumbai, the state capital. One can only imagine that perhaps Badlapur residents are an umbrella-toting lot. The average rainfall in Maharashtra state is 2,000 millimeters (mm) annually, and mostly from June to September.

But in 26 July 2005, rainfall reached 1,000 mm in one day, flooding almost the entire state, damaging much of Mumbai city infrastructure, including the all-important water supply system. Badlapur was not spared by the 2005 flash floods. Its scenic beauty and clean atmosphere, which used to attract people to build their own homes and start a family in this middle class suburban area, were washed away.

After the flood, Badlapur residents realized rain’s potential as a solution to their water needs. The KBMC, which Ram heads, decided to make a strong action plan for water management, including rainwater harvesting.

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Badlapur’s rainwater harvesting unit, which started operations on 11 March 2007, captures rainwater through a roof system, directs it into an underground "absorption pit", and allows it to percolate or seep through the soil to recharge the groundwater table. An aboveground storage tank with an electric pump draws water from underground when needed.

“The pipeline has a header and lateral system with a float valve that operates on a hydronumatic system. This means that whenever the water level goes down for individual buildings, the storage tank’s electric pump automatically starts,” Ram Patkar explains.

“We have also provided a water filtration plant that treats water with alum and sodium hypochlorite, making the water clean enough for bathing,” Ram added.

The project cost Rs.1.7 million (about US$40,000) to build, but help from the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) made constructing the system possible. The MMRDA provided Rs.1 million fund and another Rs.0.5 million loan without interest. KBMC raised the rest of the amount. Each household pays only 2 to 3 rupees a day, which is enough to cover maintenance costs and full loan payment within 2 years.

Since the unit was established, Badlapur has enough water for its residents although the town’s population keeps on increasing everyday. The system also helps reduce households' usual water bill. New resident Deepak Kamath says, “I have never faced problems of water scarcity since I moved to Badlapur.”

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Achieving this rainwater harvesting feat is no big deal for Badlapur. The town has earned a number of awards for its projects. The national government gave a special award to the KBMC for its Barrier-Free Environment project that benefited the physically handicapped. For two consecutive years, Badlapur was also the recipient of the Clean and Green City Award from the State Government of Maharashtra.

Not content to rest on its laurels, Badlapur is taking on a number of other challenging development activities, such as:

• A school-based eco-sanitation project that aims to transform human urine & excreta into biogas fuel that can be used for street lighting, cooking, etc.
• Construction and/or rehabilitation of public toilets, houses for the poor, Public Welfare Centers, public libraries, and a decentralized drainage system
• Capacity development for solid waste management, sanitation, health, and environmental management
• Establishment of various women’s livelihood and saving groups and creation of computer training programs for the poor

Badlapur residents hope that these projects will follow the footsteps of the rainwater harvesting project, which has now been extended within the town. Other cities have been visiting Badlapur to see how the system works and how they can replicate the system in their own towns.