SAVE EVERY DROP-

ZENRAINMAN
S. Vishwanath-Ecologist Interview

NIZYA MOL
S2, M. Arch, MES SOA
 SAVE EVERY DROP-ZENRAINMAN

Water is a burning issue of the present. It requires the involvement and collaboration of
governments, NGOs, companies, and citizens in crafting the right policies, innovating in
water/sanitation infrastructure and, perhaps most importantly, effect behaviour changes by
citizens (homeowners and apartment dwellers). I had an opportunity to interview Viswanath
Srikantaiah (“S. Viswanath”) – a central influential figure in the field of water and sanitation
management and a Bangalore resident.

About S. Vishwanath

Vishwanath Srikantaiah is a water conservation expert who is renowned for his tireless and
pioneering efforts to find solutions to the country’s freshwater crisis. Popularly known
as Zenrainman on social media channels, his insightful articles on water and environmental
issues frequently appear in mainstream news publications
When S. Vishwanath stuck two random words together to create a unique Gmail ID for
himself, never would he have thought that it would become the moniker he would come to
be known by. Zenrainman; Zen, as in the Buddhist school of thought, of which he is a
voracious reader and Rainman, alluding to one of his favourite Dustin Hoffman movies .
A Civil Engineer and Urban Planner by qualification, Vishwanath worked with Housing and
Urban Development Corporation (HUDCO) for 14 years before dedicating himself full-time
to solving water issues facing urban and rural communities. He is Trustee – Biome
Environmental Trust, an organisation assisting communities in water and sanitation solutions;
Director of Biome Environmental Solutions Pvt. Ltd., an architectural firm specializing in
sustainable design; and an Adjunct Faculty at the Azim Premji University
Mr. Vishwanath is also a columnist for the Hindu, who writes weekly columns about water
preservation.

His notable works

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Site Area/Plot Area (hectare/square metre): 20,234 ha
Roof Area (square metre): 39,574
Rainfall (millimetre): 912
SAVE EVERY DROP-ZENRAINMAN
Total Rainwater Available: 185 million litres
Rainwater Harvestable (kilo-litre): 62 million litres
Savings from water harvested (Rs) 37 lakhs per year Rainwater club-
Initiative done by
Vishwanath- web platform for sharing about RW an open domain to all

Residential:
Chitra’s house
Location- Vidyaranyapura, Bangalore
Roof area- 90 m. sq.

Rainfall mm- 912

Industrial:
Ezcorts mahle goetze
Harvesting rain water from the top of polyhouses, storing in tanks and using gravity-based
drip irrigation systems can lead to virtually self-sufficiency for water and energy. No external
inputs of water or power would be needed value added crops like capsicum could provide
returns and a positive cost benefit ratio.

PILOT PROJECT IMPLEMENTED

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Roof Area (square metre): 1280

Rainwater Harvested: 1.05 million litres
Investment Cost (Rs) : 2.50 lakhs
Savings from Water Harvested (Rs): 60,000 per year

Institutional
Bishop Cottons Girls High School

Pilot Project Planned: Bishop Cottons Girls High

School, Bangalore
Roof Area (square metre): 800
Rainfall (millimetres): 970
0.78 million
Rainwater Available:
litres
0.62 million
Rainwater harvestable:
litres
Investment Costs (Rs): 25,000
Savings from water harvested (Rs) 37,200 per year

Parks

 Rainwater harvesting in parks can be done using recharge wells appropriately located
and of required depth. In Bangalore it is usually 1 metre in diameter and about 6
metres deep. One recharge well is recommended for 1/4 hectare.
 All the surface runoff is filtered and led into the recharge well. In summer water can
be drawn for irrigating the park.
 Design criteria is - zero surface runoff from parks, all water to be recharged and
appropriate landscaping in tune with local requirement.
 Rainwater harvesting can be to recharge ground water. A ring well as in the picture
can collect 6000 litres of water and allow percolation into the ground.
 Ground water is recharged and urban flooding is prevented if all houses follow the
practice.

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Rural areas

At kurubarahalli...

The rural rooftop rainwater tank is covered with Cuddapah slabs on the top and has a sand
filter. No mosquito breeding is allowed. The tank should also be painted white on the outside

The harvested rain is great for washing clothes and for the cow to drink.

This is how a simple rooftop rainwater harvesting system is in a village. 400 square feet of
roof area. 600 mm of rain. Means 24,000 litres of water. The tank here is 6000 litres in
capacity and cost the family 7000 /- Rs.

The rainwater tank if designed well becomes a multi-purpose unit.

 Sit on it and cut vegetables

 Do your homework during evening hours

 Sleep on it during summertime.

 Imagination is the key. First came the rainwater tank. the the rain. Then water. Then
the family built a bath room. Now that they have water, they will then build a toilet.
The ladder to better hygiene and an improved quality of life.

A million recharge wells

“One Million Wells for Bengaluru”, this initiative was conceived and facilitated by Biome
Environmental Trust to solve the city’s water crisis about 15 years back. The movement’s
main objective has been to enable households across the city to conform to the rainwater-
harvesting byelaw that mandates rainwater harvesting. And this also includes “a recharge
well” option.
However, the focal point of the movement was not just a positive environmental
impact. Through this initiative, they are empowering the community of the Mannu Vaddars,
who have been traditionally digging wells for hundreds of years.

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Digging a recharge well or cleaning of an existent well typically takes a day of work for a
skilled team of four diggers. In the last 15 years, about one lakh recharge wells have been
constructed by the Mannu Vaddars across the city, while a total of 10,000 existent wells have
been de-silted, deepened and cleaned for functioning again
About 12.00 pm on 3rd August 2020 I shared a google meet link with the Zenrainman and he
joined me for the meeting. I introduced myself and my intention to interview him as a part of
our master’s programme assignment and also to know more about the ecologists who are far
and near to us. That was a good experience for me to interview such a good resource person
in field of water management. I had framed 14 questions for the interview and he answered
them to the point. In between he asked me about Kuttipuram and shared his experience once
he was in to Kuttipuram and also ask me about what we are learning in sustainable masters,
it was an informative session for me and also it brings more light into the idea of water
management and need for the same.

1. You are a civil engineer and an urban planner by qualification. But professionally, you
are a water activist. What brought you to the field of water management and sanitation?

“I won’t call myself as a water activist actually I am a water researcher, many calls me in
many ways, but I preferably say that I am a water researcher. It’s been a long journey. I
began trying to figure out the rainfall patterns in Bengaluru in 1991. In 1994, when we
started building our house, it was ironic that it was raining but we had to buy water
for construction. So, we devised RWHS during construction of our house. Water is an
important infrastructure and which was in crisis and from there exactly speaking my
journey starts, and it’s an evolutionary journey.”

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2. “it is very easy to point someone and say that make him/her as role model, but it is
difficult to say that look at me and make me as role model” Your home serves as an
exemplary model of how far one can implement water and waste water management
techniques in own house. Can you explain the techniques used in your house?

Well it’s a joint collaboration, actually Chitra Vishwanath, who is my wife and an
architect, she is the one who does this design of our house. I work on water and together
we can see whether we can practise what we preach. What we have done is, we design
our house as an exemplar model where we experiment and learn, we maximise natural
resources on the site Chitra designed the house and constructed it with earth block,
within the site. In the house we use rain water, solar energy, grey water recycling, eco-
san toilets, rooftop garden. We have a house which is naturally ventilated, we don’t
have a fan or AC in our house, not even use plaster, paint etc; Generally, we tried to
figure out how one can have least footprint on the earth. We don’t focus on water
management alone it’s a joint collaboration of sustainable design solutions in terms of
comfort, and natural resources.

3. What was your inspiration in setting up a rain water club? What prompted you to
initiate it?

“That was the era when press got outdated and the internet was becoming popular.
So, we were looking at how design on knowledge and data can be made open or
sourced and where we can use the platform of the web to allow the people to share
their experience and ideas and especially in rain water harvesting, club was set-up
in participatory symbol in mind which opens factual information using the web.”

4. According to the data of Central water commission- Annually India receives more rain
water than it needs. But the problem is India captures only 8% of it annual rainfall-
which is the lowest statistics among the world. Do you think that sustainable water
management is the major goal that every sphere in India to achieve?

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“The figure given by water commission the 8% is wrong. If India only have
harvested 8% and it was the lowest in the world, then India would does not have the
population indie has. How does then India manage such a large population with such
low harvesting. Rainwater is held in many parts of the earth. One of them is
something called soil moisture. Soil moisture is critical to water harvesting. 75-80%
of rain is hide in soil. Central water commission is only counting the flows in rivers
and then they are trying to measure the flow into the tap, and that they may be
imperfect. A large majority also goes into the ground to recharge the aquifers, and the
aquifers are the ones India is depending on from before 5000 years. Since Rain
water harvest is a fabulous job. I continue to do this job. We just don’t worry about
the statistics and data’s which cannot be relied too much.”
5. What are the steps or criteria’s you are following to arrive at a solution for what type of
water system be best suitable for a project?

“It depends on the project and context. If it is an urban project it will be little
more technical, we look at rainfall patterns, data. First, we look at demand. If we
see the demand is exaggerated or is minimal in the context. Then we categorise the
water available as Rain water, Ground water, and recycled water. If it is a rural
area then the solutions arrived is more from the dialogue between communities,
people with experience, who know the local area, who know the water challenges are,
it tends to bring science into that, the knowledge like we have, and the villagers
have and together try to arrive sustainable solutions appropriate for the
location.”
6. From your experience what was the best possible water management system to
implement foe a single dwelling unit in a small plot?

“First thing is to use water efficiently. You must make sure that water is not
wasted. Second thing to do is to look at the context, suppose for Kerala, we look for
open wells and to ensure good quality and good quantity water. Then the recharging
of well, from local sources of small ponds, canals around. In Bangalore we look at
RWH, water efficient systems, roof top gardening etc; The eco-sans toilet can also
be done.
What underline all these is do not harm nature and explore natural resource in an
intelligent way. After figure out hat could be done based on the context, we have to

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do is to increase biodiversity of the space, water that you consumed, have you given
it back to nature for it to nurture, you can grow lots of plants in terrace which brings
insects into the space. This is a period of great biodiversity lose, species diversity is
collapsing. So, what that we used must be reused to ensure biodiversity. That is
what everyone should keep in mind.”

7. “We have many things to learn from our past”- The million recharge wells project in
Bangalore reveals us the same. Can you elaborate?

“Not only from past we have many things to learn form present, and future also. The
challenge is to tie all these together, not to make a romantic appearance of the past,
so that is ideal and we have to go back to past. In million well scheme what we have
done was we figure out who are the peoples who provide solutions for water.
Bangalore its traditionally done by a community called Manu Vaddars, they would
dig wells. They don’t have job because people are drilling bore wells buying water
etc; So, what we done is dig wells recharge areas and cleaned unused dirty wells and
rejuvenated it, in turn gives job to the community and clean water to the area. So,
what we have to do is to marry livelihood with ecosystem.”

8. Local people in rural areas have more knowledge about what could be done in crisis,
than civilised urban people. However, they don’t have efficient technological and
economical support/resource to implement the same. Do you agree with this?
a. If yes, can you share any such experience?
b. How do we overcome this difference?

“It is not necessary that local people have better knowledge than urban people. Urban
people have their own set of knowledge their own ways of engaging with the system.
We are people who create institutions do help them solve problems. That is what
the Water supply authority, the Jal board all is doing. So, we create institutions in
urban areas to deal with the complexity of water supply and waste water.
Where is in rural areas the scale is small, So, that the Gramapanchayath can handle
it. Some peoples have their own knowledge their own experience. But now we are in
an era that we are completely unable to manage natural resources effectively. The
urban market consumes all the natural resources and spits it into pollution, it really

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deprives community, forests, everything out of natural resources. All these is at the
same time the global problem and the local problem. The local problems can be
solved at household level, or community level or in city or village level but the global
problem due to consumption which can’t be addressed locally. It must be addresses by
formulation of policies.”

9. Kerala and many other states in India had experienced a series of flood and drought
in previous years. What are the measures that can be done to prepare ourselves
against floods and drought?

“This is the era of climate change, global warming, we will experience high rainfalls,
which results in floods or even low rainfall resulting in drought. Do not build on
flood plains or in fragile land. Ensure that we don’t encroach the flood plain.
“For example, if we put Cochin airport in a flood plain of a river, then when the flood
happens and we are surprised what had happened to the airport is such a stupidity.”
Master planning, design and understanding what could floods of future be look
like and make sure that we live with floods.
“For example, In Assam and Bihar they built stilt houses which is of 6-8 ft high from
ground and at the time of flood it wont affect them and when flood water drains out
they can use the ground surface too”
Now we have entered into a period of living with floods concept.
Simple;
Don’t touch on landslide prone areas
Don’t cut roads
Don’t stoke off dams to full level and open all the shutters at time of floods.
We have advanced early waring systems. So, make use of it.
Plan for drought is another disaster management, to stock food grains, identify
livelihood measures, here comes the point of reuse and recycle of grey/waste water
which ensures less wastage and effective management of disaster like drought.
Each planning has to be done as a land use planning, as a landscape plan, it cannot do
as a water plan, water alone will not sort of the flood or drought problem. It is living
with the land, living with the soil, managing the landscape. Then we get
solutions”

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10. Currently, institutions are incapable of meeting the sanitation needs of the country.
As a water activist can you suggest the measures to be taken by the public to make the
authorities aware of their needs?
a. What are the possible solutions that the authorities can implement to meet the
society’s needs, (in policy and technology)?

“In India we ran biggest sanitation programme in the world. 120 million dollars for last 6
years as Swatch Bharath mission and in rural areas it is Swatch Bharath Grameen and in
Urban it is Swatch Bharath abhiyan. Cities have a challenge that it is expanding rapidly.

City like Bangalore puts on 4-5 million peoples every 10 years, that kind explosive
growth is difficult to every institution to manage. So, we always have a time lag that the
population has grown but the sanitation has not. Similarly, with solid waste
management. In solid waste management segregation of plastic wastes etc is of
individual action. Institution has the role to nudge people to certain area but the
people have to respond.

For houses we have on plot sanitations but the septic tank must need a specific better
design in order not to get mixed up with the water source of another’s well nearby due to
the increase in population density and complexity in living over congested land areas.

“Ecosystem is fast changing so the institution also has to change but it has a time lag
and that is what we feel it as incapability.””

11. In terms of water management and sanitation What do you think about the challenges
and future of India?

“Challenge is we have to see waste water as the exemplar resource, farmers who
takes waste water or solid waste from cities and with limited treatment they ensure
it is not having hygienic or health risk and the water is drawn to fields and solid
waste as fertilizers for the crops.
For example, in my house whole solid waste is circulated and after filtration goes to
the terrace garden, nothing goes out.

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It is quick relation between generation of waste and absorption capacity of soil. Soil is
a great absorber. Now at every scale soil can be designed to absorb the waste that
has been generated.
Industrial waste is another matter which has to be tackled by technology. So, the
urban and rural must be keep in hand in hand for the main challenge the solid
waste/waste water management.”

12. “Singapore is a model for water management, and our cities can learn a lot on how
best to tap nature and technology”-has been quoted from your article “The ‘four
taps’ approach”. Can you explain?

“Four tap approach by Singapore is-

1. Pipe water from Malaysia
2. Rain water harvested in large areas
3. Treated waste water they called as New water
4. Desalination
In many parts of India, the fourth tap is not desalination, it is Ground water. And
India is blessed with abundantly and now we are doing efficiently at our end and
to ensure is efficient consumption without wastage of water.”

13. What should we do to make the common man water literate?

“Luckily, we have a good education policy- focusing on local language. As

much as local language is important, local biology, local geography, local water
etc is important. When we have focus on local we will identify the issues relating
to local at its root cause. Then definitely we will be water literate.
Local knowledge is the most important knowledge for us to solve many
problems”

14. “A permanent job is that you get too attached to comforts, but when you see that it’s
not challenging enough, those comforts have no meaning.” As quoted from one of
your interviews- Can you elaborate?

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“Actually, human beings start justify that why they are doing that, this etc which are
great acts; These are not great acts. You have one life, So, in that life we have to
engage fully with all the intellectual power you have been given blessed by nature and
all the knowledge that society has provided to you. And use all these to tackle the
community’s problems that you see around you, its all not great things, its all about
the comfort that our mind feels not our physical body experience.”

By 12.45 pm I ended the meting by greeting him and saying gratitude towards him for
giving such a wonderful and informative interview.

THANK YOU

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