M S S R F - Centre for Research on Sustainable Agricultural & Rural Development

Presentation

"Integrated Water Resources Management Approaches: Global and National Scenario" - A Public Forum

- by Smt. C. K. Gariyali IAS

Secretary, Municipal Administration &Water Supply

Good evening. Since you all are learned people and you all know lot about what is happening here, I am going to tell you about something that what we have done in recent past due to acute shortage of water trying to educate, create a movement for rain water harvesting in the metropolitan city of Madras. Of course throughout TN also. But I am just going to share with you what's going on and probably some impacts which might show because it will be one of the ways of managing the natural resource which we are getting by the way of the day.

This is the traditional areas. These blue are the tanks from which we traditionally the water supply of Chennai City. There are three or four major tanks in which are in the map. Now there is growth of population and water requirements since from 1951, the population was one part of 4.6 million and now it is 6 million and the water which is required is 1000 mld. But we are able to supply only 205 mld of water. So we are meeting only 1/5 th requirement of the city.

Now in addition we have been having series of drought in Chennai

The first one we had a drought in 1987 and we have been thinking what has been done we had only 979 mm rainfall and all the three lakes that supply water to Chennai city, the had very low storage and so that in the first time we thought of starting a legislation. At the beginning was some legislation thought of.

Now this is again the second drought was in 1993. Same with the infall was very low and the storage was only 1000 and that is the first time people thought we should go for rain water harvesting and we should involve people and small beginning was made then.

This is the third drought which has been lasting for three years and luckily actually that you all here now had started somebody in. But for three years we had no rain in Madras all our reservoirs are totally dry and they are gone dry. Really we are having a difficult time and as you say we are getting water from well fields which Madam Judith spoke about it might me affecting some agricultural labourers and we are getting it from 200 miles and 300 miles we are getting water from Veeranam getting water from Neyveli getting water from lorries and railways and you know we have 6 million people here who are drinking water and all kinds of sources and so it is very acute situation. So that what how it is now.

So this legislation which we brought it the first time there was regulation of sinking of new water wells, exisiting leve of wells will be frozen and then if had to renenwal, you have to have permission and liscence all that and the legislation of existing wells were done etc., etc., so some schedule areas was selected around some areas of Chennai and Kanchipuram district. So 243 villages water were protected and some steps have been taken.

Again some of the check dams are built on this one of the rivers which here which is here, so that water could recharge from the well field from where we take the water for drinking and most of the well field are in common land and some of them are in agricultural land and some of them belong to some private farmers also.

Because of these check dams there was imropvement in the water level. So it was one of the things which improved the water level and this red line which is after the check dams are put in the river and the groundwater started recharging.

Other alternative methods which we started using was we starting installing small aro plants and not very big and 1.5 ml. It is going on very fast and we are still looking at some more areas, so that we can put those kind of solutions which can give water to people. So three are functioning now and we are looking for other locations where they can be suitable to install them.

Now what is happening to the well field. Well field has so much of water and now it is in red bars. The water level has come so much down because of our exploitation. Now this is now we are tackling this scarcity and now are having this mini desalination and transporting by railways and lorries and private wells and other bore wells and so on. The only thing one of the major areas we are looking at for harvesting water, because of various reasons it is necessary you known population growth and over exploitation and because of this ground water more exploitation all over coastal area which had very good sweet water became saline now. This is also another problem now which the rain water harvesting quality of water to slightly improve. Now this is one of calculations which has been made that if there is terrace of 1000 sq.m and average rainfall was 977 mm which is not too high, we can have 160 litres of water per day throughout the year. That much is the potential of one terrace of 1000 m in terms of it is very good you know that is a average house having a terraces of 100 sq.m can it meet its own requirement of water if we harvest rain water properly.

Different types of roofs suit if there is a roof top thing we can put it in abundant well because lots of wells have been dried up and it can be directly to that or we can put them into abundant bore wells or put them into charge pits and put them into trenches or in other ways and different ways we could do it.

Now these are the different structures we have made for the hut, small houses and big buildings Metropolitan Development Authority made the rule that all plan should come with the water harvesting structure. And is made compulsory and that of course implementation was not that strong, but on the implementation of that is improved and it is become mended to have water harvesting structure in every building.

And we have followed it from 2001 and our Chief Minister we had a new government and our CM was very much interested in because we had a big drought. So she went on appealing. She went on Radio, TV. She listened to her words and so she launched a big campaign for her rainwater harvesting structure.

So various ways it was done so various agencies, public and everybody else, district offices, all municipalities, town panchayats and all villages we campaigned and non-governmental organisations, students, volunteers, educational institutions, industries, resident associations and this in the way they were doing in different ways in rural areas, schools and different places.

Again we have oridinances to protect all these structure and then we also issued a rule for separately the bath and wash water. But I stromgly admit that rule that has been formed was not strongly implemented now but we are very seriously considering into that.

This further amendment to ground water rules we had 59 additional villages to protect them that the fines was increased from Rs.1000 to Rs.5000 for violation and mandatory requirements of rain water harvesting structure in all buildings not only for big buildings but for all buildings, no extraction of ground water for swimming pools and industrial uses and other non-potable purposes, restrictin to the depth of bore wells and no water body public or private to be utilised for any other purpose such as land fill, gabage and building etc., and this modification was that again the ordinance issued by government on 2003, making it mandatory for all the buildings throughout the state to have the rain water harvesting structure.

So lot of campaign designation of information on how to establish the centre and we had seminars, rallies, human chains, advertisings, booklets, posters and door to door campaigns and appeals from the highest bodies, political parties, pannelist, self help groups. I don't know whether you have learnt about self help groups that all are talking before. In TN we have about 30 lakhs ie three million of women enrolled into the self help group movements, which is a women's movement. Come together and worked together for various purpose, as social economic and political also. So this is a very good network of women and they are now being involved in all activities and they have strongly recommending all the parents in their involvement and they are more vocal and active and somebody mentioned that I have been working Prof.Velayutham that in this movement for a long time and I have written a book for women called, "Womens' Own" because I consider this is the women's own movement whether somebody pushes it or not it will come up by itself. Because it is growing now and they have understood that they have to come together so they are all getting together slowly. And more they get involved better it will be further local villages, local water bodies and all kinds of resources whether it is in forest, land or water once all the local women are involved and they will be definitely protected.

Again the campaign II Phase of the Campaign unfortunately what happened with the 2001 onwards itself we started this campaign we got all the places all the structures and there was no rain for the next three years and we could not see the benefits of it, except in a few districts where there was rain the tanks got filled up and the people of Madras City was starving to see that good after all this door to door campaign and everybody was forced to have the structure. But now recently they have neen picked up and we can be able to see some benefit.

This is before the rain and slight improvement in rain, that was very little and we have not gone gone back and checked what is happening now. Now it is been sustainable rain after a week or so we will be able to get other things will get stabilized and a bit of rain last month, it has its small impacts that it started showing. The red dots on the map showing that it was a bit of rain and not much.

Now this about TDS improvement even that small rain so happened that they was so much improvement in TDS. You can see the red is the improvement dots and green in the so that was the impact and I am to expect much more after this spell of rain is over and we have to go back and look after everything and test everything and again educating people and these all our posters and all how to go about and this is a big public campaign going on. So we encourage direct elections, surplus storage through lakes, temple tanks to recharge the ground water acquifer and is all done with the public participation and every citizen has been involved and every house owner has been involved in this and every NGO has been involved and every University (Anna University) and technical institutions, polytechnics and Engineering colleges and all of them have been involved. In fact some of the structures were made by students of the Anna University and later they made a group and developed and they started selling them commercially. They made things and very cost effective at low cost with some pipes and things which was not costing much. Everybody could use. So there was a lot of development was done by the technical and local institutions.

So rain is free and catch it free and that is our slogan.