Feb 2004

MUMBAI.
With 90 inches of annual rainfall, this old city is beginning to face a looming water crisis. The groundwater level is reported to have plunged down by an average of 30 to 50 feet in less than a year.
The whole of Mumbai is supplied about 2,500 million litres — against 500 million litres of supply in Bangalore. Mumbai’s total demand is about 4,000 million litres. This is not so much due to non–availability of water, as you will soon see.
What is less known is that there is a cruel irony to the water supply situation in the metro.
Water for Fun–lovers

It’s time to legislate rainwater harvest norms

BANGALORE.
The state government has taken a cue from Chennai and Delhi and proposed the legislation of a set of norms for ensuring harvest of rainwater in homes.
It is no news that the water scenario in Bangalore is grim. With the demand at over 800 million litres a day, there is no more than 500 million litres that the Water Supply Board has been able to offer. It is not their fault. Cauvery is a finite source.
One per cent of the time

So how does one get responsible and change the way you have used energy at your home all these years? There are no magic wands. There are, of course, a few simple enabling features that you could think of incorporating in your home. It is easier to do this when you are building a home, rather than retrofit a house already existing.
And as part of a broad set of guidelines many organisations across the world suggest the following to make a home resource–friendly.

Those AC Conduits

There are hundreds of thousands of them these days across the country. They are modelling resource–sensitive ways to grow food, build houses, treat waste water, conserve water, treat waste, reuse materials, recycle materials, reduce both use and waste of many resources we need for getting on with life.
They are either small and medium home–builders, or architects, or water and energy managers sometimes individuals, sometimes tight–knit organisations.