rwh

Bangalore is growing at an unprecedented rate,and its sprawling expansions outpaces the public utility's ability to accommodate the skyrocketing demand for water and sanitation services. It is increasingly common for new residential communities to assume total management for their own water and sanitation services through the resident welfare associations. Most of these depend on borewells and tankers, which they sooner or later realise is not a sustainable option. Groundwater recharge, one of the forms of rainwater harvesting, can be instrumental in achieving long-term water security. By taking water out of over-stressed storm drains and replenishing them into shallow aquifers, groundwater…

Bellandur Buzz…June 20th 2014 Shared fortnightly by the Citizen group bellandur-forum@googlegroups.comKasa Muktha Bellandur on 97.5 FMThis week, Kasa Muktha Bellandur initiative got some air time on 97.5 FM. The RJ called the Environment Engineer of the ward to ask details about 2-bin-1-bag process and congratulated her on the success of the initiative. When the city is dealing with the Mandur crisis all over again, and the waste situation in the city does not seem any better than what it was two years ago, the success of the SWM experiment in our own ward brings some hope. Read more about the initiative…

Current scenario of water availability in Bangalore seems to be grim with ground water almost over and tanker mafia twisting our arms. Last year’s indication of dry weather prompted our apartment to find out an easy way of collecting rainwater as a proper rainwater harvesting system was not made initially. Zephyr Block of Suncity Apartments, Ibblur, thought of using the flat roofs of the building to collect rainwater. Roof rainwater pipes were attached to a main big pipe and then to a small tank. The initial water collected in the small tank and after a while the clean water starts…

Bellandur Buzz… April 9th 2014, Issue 7 This is a fortnightly newsletter shared by the citizen group bellandur-forum@googlegroups.comVisit to Rainbow Drive: RWH tourAbout 50 residents and estate managers from apartments and layouts  around Sarjapura Road took a 1 hr walk inside Rainbow Drive on Saturday morning to see how ground water recharge had been implemented there. This event was organized by BIOME Trust, MAPSAS and Rainbow Drive. The participants saw the recharge wells and interatced with Bharti and Manjunath of Rainbow Drive. They also watched a movie on how water enters borewell in small streams flowing underground. This was followed…

Were you among those who frequently complained during summer- “Oh! This is the hottest summer I have ever seen..”? True. Rain gods weren’t kind on the city last summer. The increased demand for water had shot up the water price in the market. Now it is a great relief that our water problem is gone. Rains have brought down the temperature and we, until the next summer, tend to forget all the inconveniences we had during the last summer. It is essential to wake up before the situation goes out of control again and a severe water crisis arises in…

The residents of Chaithanya Samarpan layout at Kadugodi, north of Whitefield, started smiling in late May when pre-monsoon showers blessed Bengaluru and then continued into June. Water stopped in a storm water drain. It gets diverted into the collection chambers through the PVC pipe shown. Pics: Rainwater Concepts. But their smiles were not just because the rain brought much-awaited respite from the heat wave of April and May. It was because earlier this year the Samarpan owners' association had initiated a massive rainwater harvesting project for the layout. A network of water trapping, filtering and harvesting structures were built underground.…

There is no area in Bangalore today where rainwater directly seeps into the ground except a few parks like Lalbagh and Cubbon Park. Almost all roads are cemented or tarred.  Natural lakes and ponds have become foundations for huge residential apartments and commercial complexes. Rain harvesting pit in JayanagarBBMP has miserably failed in managing rainwater. The idea of having a 12 feet deep pits reinforced with concrete rings in storm water drains is good but is shabbily executed in Jayanagar.BBMP officials should have ensured that the rainwater enters the drain and reaches the rainwater harvesting pit.  If this exercise was…

One may not expect a topic like borewell recharging or types of sewage treatment plant hold a 70+ strong audience engaged and animated over 7 hours of a Saturday. But last Saturday saw a bunch of residents mostly apartment owners, many of them representing over 50 apartments' management committees at a workshop on water. Ashwin Mahesh advocated creating water. Pic: Deepthi M S The session was organised by ApartmentAdda which provides apartment management solutions. Co-founder and director Venkat Kandaswamy, talked about bringing the relevant stakeholders and experts together on a single platform so residents can be empowered to tackle water…

Taking possession of an apartment is so often fraught with its own challenges (late handover, defects within the apartment) for the individual apartment owner, that more often than not building-level issues tend to be ignored.  Further, during the Builder-provided warranty period, occupancy normally tends to be very low, making very few people available for handling building-level issues.  Caveat Emptor: Latin for 'Let the Buyer Beware'. While first-time associations do cover obvious issues (like major defects / incompletion in building construction, basic documentation, handover of maintenance corpus), many other issues are ignored, either due to a lack of awareness or resources…

Most of us know how difficult it is to work with government officials to get the works done. And works related to a social cause will take more time, energy and patience. But the following report makes all citizens to feel happy and ready to shower flowers on the officials who are quick in taking actions on matters related to the social causes brought up by the FORward150 active members. I congratulate all the officials who are directly and indirectly helped us in FORward150 intiatives. Water flow into the Ambalipura lake. Pic: Rajesh Rao. This is one of the biggest…