Aug 2004

Indians, over centuries, developed a range of techniques to harvest rainwater, as part of their daily lives. From the network of copper pipes of the Harappa times, to the intricate network of filtered water supply that some of the Saurashtra kingdoms evolved over 1500 years ago, there has been craft and engineering brought to bear on such urban water planning. Urban rainwater harvesting techniques have been virtually non-existent in all urban planning of the last hundred years.

It’s hard to believe that we can solve our water problems without the government’s network of pipes ‘growing water’. Look at these stories, from across India, of people in the government and outside it having quietly turned to finding solutions right there where the problem is. Read on . . .

A Success Story
The government is slowly turning to looking at traditional harvesting systems, or so they claim. The question is : Why are all governments and the bureaucracy ashamed of using a rich tradition refined and developed over the years? Why do we consider those systems backward?

They are called kuhals in Jammu, kuls in Himachal Pradesh and guls in Uttarakhand. Maharashtians call them pats. In Ladakh they are called zings, and in Nagaland, zabo. Tamilians call them eris; Kannadigas, keres. Rajasthanis have tankas, kundis, bawdis and jhalaras among other names.

Wrote a concerned and articulate advocate of the environment some years ago: “Just suppose for a moment, howsoever impossible it may sound: the state just disappears one day. There is nobody to supply you with piped water. What will you do?” It is clear the monsoon have failed. The figures will reel in order the weeks ahead.