Vision of Life; by Sanjay: Success Story of Water Self Sufficiency @ Yashwin Jiwan Orchid, Sus

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“Water, a thoroughly underrated drink.”… Wayne Gerard Trotman

Wayne Gerard Lionel Trotman is a British-Trinidadian award-winning writer, filmmaker, artist, photographer, composer, and producer of electronic music; no wonder, a man with such versatile talents only, can describe things like water in so few words! Though, of late even the Punekars who could have been the object of above remarks of Wayne are now realizing to give due respect to water as population is increasing & sources or the water are same yet there are many (read as Punekars) who not only think having water in abundance is their birthright but even to waste it also! Frankly speaking, three topics I have decided not to write or share or even think about, in Pune; one is, our State’s Urban Development Policies, second is, Traffic/ Public Transport in Pune & third is, Water! Though I know then I will have to stop writing & this is also true that my writing (read as frustration a times) about these three topics may not change anything about them yet somewhere someone may start thinking & change, this simple (foolish) thought makes me break my vows & then this time I am writing about water as the subject is some positive & nicer story, again a rare thing, so be it!

First thing is, I get an opportunity to work on Ground Water Committee (or Cell) established by PMC & it’s really a good step that finally the system (not just PMC) has awaken about this very important aspect or source in water demand of the citizens as well there are many learned, experienced people along on this committee, so it’s very good exposure for me as an individual civil engg. also! At the same time two more things happened, one was, this year the summer got extended till entire June without a drop of rains & causing water scarcity even in central parts of Pune (read as Pune region, PMC, PCMC & PMRDA). As usual the newspapers were happy printing tanker stories & nexus of politicians with water black marketers as well lakhs of rupees societies spending for water etc. etc. Second incidence is like breeze in the summer & main reason of my will to sharing about water & that is, water story in one of our completed projects in Sus, a fast-growing western suburb of Pune which recently has become part of PMC & was in PMRDA earlier! Now please don’t ask me details of what “now in PMC & earlier PMRDA” means, as that will make me break my second vow of not writing about Urban development policies, so maybe sometime later about it; in nutshell, Sus is a suburb which though is part of PMC, yet there is no proper infrastructure of water supply distribution (till now) & most of the societies are dependant on water tankers as well ground water (bore wells) as only source of water, & so are many suburbs of Pune.

Fortunately, Pune region has good ground water levels & as agriculture is becoming less, the pumping of groundwater is also less making it sufficient for domestic purposes. But, this was the situation till last decade with the speed of urbanization & poor distribution of water supply & most importantly our negligent attitude towards rainwater which in turn becomes part of ground water, the situation of ground water supply as source, is grave (read as bad) now! In many areas bore wells are going dry & even if you go to 200 ft plus depth yet the water inflow of the well is very small which isn’t enough even for drinking & in central parts the quality of bore well water is very poor i.e., polluted due to various reasons such as drainage water contamination, various chemicals flowing along from the vehicles fuels leaks & such, making use of bore well water impossible for domestic purpose! And on top of it something which we all know but nobody does nothing (which is a reason I have decided to stop sharing about it) i.e., rampant concretization all around the city & reducing green cover or big trees, both things affecting ground water quantity as well quality directly! As we have hard paved all the surfaces, this makes whatever rain water fall on these areas directly get in contact with chemicals, dirt on these surfaces & flows along with it to storage tanks (so called rain water tanks or pits). Had this water fallen on earth surface then it would have travelled through various layers which acts like physical & chemical filters thus making its quality better. As well there is no percolation of rainwater which earlier was evenly distributed all around the city thus making the aquifers (natural water storages formed underground) go dry, that’s why no more water is available for bore wells. At the same time under the name of development (re-development too) we have cut down many big trees thus reducing the water holding capacity of the soil as well filtration capacity too, which adds to the reduction in ground water levels. There is a law of planting at least three numbers of trees when you cut one big tree but first how many follow such laws & second how many such trees actually get lived actually & third what about the rains & its percolation in ground till these trees will once again grow big! All these factors are directly related to groundwater charging & as I said, who cares as all expect the government (read as PMC) to supply them with whatever water, whatsoever they need!

On such a background when we built Yashwin Jiwan Orchid @ Sus, Pune, a society of nearly 210 plus homes, we have right from the beginning decided to make the society self-sufficient on the front of water needs. And fortunately, we had enough space available, so all we needed was some in depth study, planning & execution, which we did & today after five years of possession, there isn’t a single water tanker required till today (touchwood) in the society. I think we are successful to our satisfaction in our efforts to build a society where rain water in combination with ground water & recycled water along with proper tree cover will take care of water needs of the society & make it self-sufficient even in summers, which it did! What we did is, have two open wells, one at the entrance & one at the rear end (its rectangular plot with front side narrower than length) & then planned the project in such a way that every drop of rain water will flow towards these two wells. And we have three intermediate bore wells also by studying Hydro-Geotech (soil study system) structure of the land of the project & connected all these wells with a pumping system. At the same time, we have planted nearly 200 plus indigenous trees all around the boundary of the project all of them properly nurtured & grown big (we made them adopted by every flat holder with name board of the family adjoining the respective tree), all these tree’s roots helped a lot in increasing water retaining capacity of the soil which in return helped to charge the wells as well aquifers!

At the same time, we have treated recycled drainage water which when in excess (in monsoons) we again used to charge the aquifers as well the open wells by letting that water after treatment, in these wells, which we retreat before use up-to required chemical levels! Most importantly we made the resident explain what we have done & why as right from maintaining the trees to periodical cleaning of the rain water chambers & filters to pumping systems to keeping the premise clean, everything mattered for the success of making the society self-sufficient on water front & this is not possible without the residents disciplined attitude towards the subject! As well they have to be freed from the myths or say taboo of rejecting the use of recycled water or well water for daily needs as that is equally important i.e. the mindset of the residents towards the water supply. In fact, the figures show the well water after treatment is near match to Bisleri (read as bottled water) as its double filtered, one by nature (earth) & secondly by machines! I won't go much into the figures but in summarizing my statement just take this in account, the entire land of Yashwin Jiwan Orchid would have nearly 15 crore liters of water (in rainfall form) in a year with Pune’s average rainfall of 30 inches per year, while the society needs approximately 5 crore liters of water per year (as per WHO norms) & if not a single litre of water has been taken from outside in last five years, our mission ground + rain water is fairly successful & with 200 plus trees have grown big which provides home for many birds too, what more we could have hoped for!

It's such stories which help me to pull myself out of frustration & reminds me, there is still hope for nature at large as when you save water & use it in the proper way then you will be able to conserve not just humans but many species along which are equal part of this system! And this is what we should replicate all around Pune & every urban centre instead blindly following some pattern of development. As well understand what you want to achieve while you go for any development & let’s reduce our greed for consuming more FSI a bit. Even the govt which tells developers to adopt rainwater & such things itself should self-analyze, as look at what you see around, every inch of roads & surroundings are hard paved with no space for water to percolate in ground but only through some rain water chambers which also are blocked all the yearlong! This concreting/hard paving all around also takes away space for grass, insects which in turn reduces butterflies & sparrows like birds making your city a concrete jungle! Do remember, rain water/ ground water systems can’t be cut-pasted from one place to another but very locally implemented & that is not impossible! Today, when I visit Yashwin Jiwan Orchid & meet happy faces of the residents (even in Summer) & I see birds, butterflies, squirrels dancing on the Jamun & Neem trees, I think this is what a society should be, where everybody has its right space, even a single drop of rainwater too, adios with this satisfied feeling!

(Sharing contact details of office bearers of Yashwin Jiwan Orchid Soc, Mr Shastri & Mr Mule, as well our team for any assistance you need on the subject.

Mr Shastri – 09822463687/ Mr Mule – 00822979690,

sales@sanjeevanideve.com )

You can check all the details of this story in visual form at the link below…

https://www.flickr.com/photos/sanjeevani_developers/albums/72177720309891298/with/53057155319/

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Sanjay Deshpande

Sanjeevani Dev.

Please view my sharing about real estate in Pune at You Tube link below..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4xX7eopH5o&t=5s

Please do visit my blog links below to read about real estate & home buying!

https://visonoflife.blogspot.com/2023/01/defining-good-home-real-estate-in-2023.html

http://jivnachadrushtikon.blogspot.com/2023/02/blog-post.html