Roof top rain water harvesting is the answer of water woes

Khadki is a village of Karamala block that is located on the upper side of the Sina River basin. In Jan. 2016 village Khadki was included under the AWO Sponsored Special Initiative (SI) for Poverty Reduction and Food Security for Poor and Vulnerable Communities. Like other villages in Karmala Block, Khadki also has less, erratic and uncertain rainfall and did not have adequate water harvesting structures to store whatever rain it received.

As a result most of the villagers’ practice rain fed farming which is vulnerable to climate changes, producing low yields, making them food insecure. The situation forces them to migrate at distant locations for their daily wage earnings. Due to depletion of ground water the village population suffered acute drinking water scarcity and was dependent on tanker supply.  All the ground water sources including the hand pump in the school premises  dried up early in the year. To harvest water during the months of the rainy season and to improve ground water levels in the parched period, AFARM came up with a model of roof top water as a special initiative or pilot case. The Zila        Parishad,  Primary School premises from village Khaki was selected to demonstrate recharging of hand pumps through roof top water harvesting

The school management and ‘Upjivika Vikas Samittee were not open to implement this idea in the beginning but were eventually convinced. Then the mechanism for roof top water harvesting and collection was erected   over the entire school building spanning  an area of about 3000 sq.feet. The collected rain water was passed through a suitable low cost filtering medium and put up near the hand pump for ground water recharging. 

The roof top water harvesting structure started functioning and around 106335 liters of water were harvested and recharged during the rainy season.  As a result ground water level in the hand pump has increased supplying water to 55 school students and surrounding 20 households throughout the year. As a result of water recharge, one more bore well in the school premises was recharged. The teachers realized the importance and were convinced of the concept of rain water harvesting structures after seeing the reality. Latter, the school management installed a 1.5 HP motor on the recharged bore well for water lifting and constructed water storage tank.  The School started using the stored water for the toilet and cleanliness of the school.