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Home
Swachh Warriors

A 72-Year-Old From Madurai Has A

Solution To Tide Over The Crisis Of
Clean Water
Meet 72-year-old N. Arunachalam from Madurai who along with his family is relying solely on
recycled rainwater since 34 years
Swachh Warriors, Tamil Nadu
 
| 
Written By: Aastha Ahuja | Edited By: Sonia Bhaskar
 
| January 03, 2020 3:26 PM |
 
0
 
 

By practising rainwater harvesting, N. Arunachalam saves 16,000 litres of water every year

New Delhi: Taps, wells, hand pumps running dry is a real fear that looms large in many
parts of India. Apart from freshwater sources drying up the other huge issue India faces
is the risk of water-borne diseases due to lack of clean, treated water. The need of the
hours is to not just clean-up the freshwater sources, but conserve every drop of water
and recycle as much as possible.
72-year-old N. Arunachalam, a former chief engineer from Madurai, adopted some of the
best practices when it came to water conservation and is now reaping the benefits of his
efforts for over 30 years by being water self-sufficient and not having to pay any bills for
it. He started water conservation as early as 1985 using a technique he learnt from his
mother and grandmother of collecting rainwater in giant copper vessels. The collected
water would then be recycled and used for the purpose of drinking and cooking. In a
conversation with NDTV recalling his initial years, Mr Arunachalam, said,
During our school holidays, our parents would take us to our ancient house at Kallal, a
village in Sivaganga District of Tamil Nadu. In the course of our visit, whenever it rained,
my mother and grandmother would call me to help them in collecting rainwater in a giant
copper vessel. The collected water would then be filtered using a dhoti (man’s wrap
around) to make it usable for the purpose of drinking and cooking. The excess water
was then used for washing floor in our house, with an area of 5000 square feet.

Also Read: A Four Step Guide To Grey Water Recycling At Home

Water warrior N. Arunachalam

During his civil engineering days, Mr Arunachalam was very interested in structural
design, geology, and hydraulics involving various water saving techniques. Later in
1970, he joined the Public Works Department (PWD) as an assistant engineer and
started promoting the concept of rainwater harvesting among government offices,
schools, and corporates.

In 1985, when Mr Arunachalam built his own house, he ensured the structure had
adequate rainwater harvesting system in place which involves catchment area, water
storage tanks, filtration chamber, among other things. 34 years down the line,
Arunachalam’s uses only recycled rainwater for drinking and cooking and hasn’t paid
any water bill in over three decades.

Harvest And Recycle Rainwater And Recharge

Groundwater N. Arunachalam’s Way
I believe water is a nature’s gift and buying or selling it is a crime. Rainwater harvesting
can help people become self-reliant in terms of water, says Mr Arunachalam, as he
shares his experiences, lessons, and dos and don’ts on rainwater harvesting and
recycling.
Also Read: Adopt These 4Rs To Save Water, A Woman From Hyderabad Shows How
N. Arunachalam, the water warrior from Madurai follows ‘gravity flow’ technique for
harvesting and recycling rainwater and aiding groundwater recharge. Gravity flow starts
from the roof which is the catchment area and ends in the ground with recharging of
groundwater.

The collected water is directed to a filter chamber for the purpose of filtration. Rainwater
passes through three layers of filtration – fine sand, charcoal and finally pebbles. With
the help of gravity, the filtered water is directed to the underground sump. The motor
pumps water from underground sump which is the storage tank to the overhead tank
installed on our roof, says Mr Arunachalam.

Mr Arunachalam has installed a water pipe connecting the overhead tank to the kitchen,
making it easy to fetch water for the purpose of drinking and cooking. In the kitchen, the
purified rainwater is collected in a container, again filtered using a dhoti, boiled, cooled
and poured in a stainless steel container. After this, the rainwater is safe for use.
Stainless steel container used to filter the harvested rainwater
Meanwhile, overflow from underground sump or storage tank is sent to the ground, for
the purpose of recharging borewell.

One should clean pebbles and sand using an antiseptic liquid and dry them in sunlight
for a day, reason being, these pebbles are obtained from rivers which are used and
spoiled by humans these days, says Mr Arunachalam.

Also Read: Five Things India Should Do To Avoid A Water Crisis

This way, Mr Arunachalam saves 16,000 litres of water every year, sufficient for three
families – Arunchalam’s family of three uses 8000 litres every year and the remaining
8000 litres are used by two families of tenants. While harvested and recycled water is
used for the purpose of drinking and cooking, water from borewell is utilised in bathing
and washroom. The family is relying solely on recycled rainwater and doesn’t have a
connection to water supplied by Municipal Corporation.

India gets 94 per cent of the water from rain, if we do not do enough to conserve it, we
will definitely run out of water. Harvesting rainwater should be the primary responsibility
of every individual. If people (just like Mr Arunachalam) make arrangements to collect
rainwater we will have enough water the year round without depending on water tankers
and shelling extra money. Rainwater is completely safe to drink, we simply need to be
careful of the collection and filtration process, says 40-yar-old Subhajit Mukherjee from
Mumbai, advocating groundwater recharge through rainwater harvesting.

Also Read: Rainwater Harvesting: Conserve To Consume, Says This 40-year-old From

Mumbai
Today, the water conservationist provides consultancy on rainwater harvesting.

Is Rainwater Harvesting And Recycling Feasible?

Mr Arunachalam who is using only rainwater for the last 34 years believes water crisis
will continue to prevail in the country because of population growth, global warming,
deforestation, and other things, and current plausible and the doable solution is to
harvest rainwater, recycle and reuse it. The rainwater harvesting crusader is of the
opinion that spending on a rainwater harvesting system is a one-time investment and the
expenditure can easily be recovered within the first five years.

I suggest getting a rainwater system in place while building your own house as it is easy
to get things in place then only. During construction, it will cost you only Rs. 2.5 lakh
which is nothing as compared to what you will be spending on the creation of entire
structure, furniture, interior decoration and others. Individuals willing to harvest rainwater
should always seek expert guidance and approach engineers to get the thing right.
Talking to plumbers who don’t have complete knowledge won’t benefit you in anyway,
says Mr Arunachalam.

Also Read: The Waterman Of India, Rajendra Singh, Says ‘Water Literacy’ Is Need Of The
Hour As Country Faces Water Crisis
Why Rainwater Harvesting?
According to the Composite Water Management Index (CWMI) report released by NITI
(National Institution for Transforming India) Aayog in 2018, 21 major cities (Delhi,
Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad and others) are racing to reach zero groundwater levels
by 2020, affecting access for water for 100 million people. The report blames excessive
groundwater pumping, an inefficient and wasteful water management system and
insufficient rains. The report also states 12 per cent of India’s population is already living
in places with zero groundwater and by 2030 the country’s water demand is projected to
be twice the available supply.

The water resources for any city are the groundwater, surface water and rainwater. If we
take Hyderabad as an example, groundwater used to be at 30-40 feet in the 1920s and
today we are going beyond 2000 feets. The city receives about 80mm of rainfall. We
don’t care to conserve, we throw it in our drains. If we take 1 square km of area with 1
cm rain for an hour, you can capture equivalent to 5000 water tankers and that’s how
much you can recharge groundwater, says Kalpana Ramesh, an activist, and water
conservation from Hyderabad.

Also Read: This NGO In Chandrapur Is Educating People About Importance Of Water

Conservation
It is known that harvesting rainwater and utilising it aids in solving the water scarcity, but
that is surely not the only advantage of rainwater harvesting. Having used rainwater for
34 years, Mr Arunachalam has a long list of health and economic benefits of rainwater
harvesting.
While washing hair with purified rainwater prevents hair loss, using it for shaving
increases the life of a blade. Washing clothes in the rainwater will bring down your usage
of detergent by 50 per cent. The food prepared in the rainwater will have an added,
unique taste and will not be spoiled even for two to three days. Your overall health will
improve as rainwater will take care of your kidneys and protect you from urinary
infections. Together these benefits will reduce your expenditure on health care. It is a
win-win situation, shares Mr Arunachalam.

Backing the rainwater harvesting consultant’s opinion, Ramkumar, one of the residents
of Meridien Corner Apartment in Madurai, says,

Rainwater is the purest form of water and definitely it is better in comparison to

groundwater. I believe harvesting and recycling rainwater is the need of the hour as the
rainy season is diminishing which means we hardly get proper rainfall, because of which
groundwater levels are going down. With rainwater harvesting, we have reduced our
dependence on groundwater and are aiding in groundwater recharge. I believe we all
can practise it at home.

So far lack of awareness among people and proper enforcement by government is

considered to be the major reasons behind rainwater harvesting not being adopted in a
big way, across the country.

Also Read: Over 3.5 Lakh Water Conservation Measures Taken Up Under Jal Shakti Abhiyan,
Says Union Cabinet Secretary Pradeep Kumar Sinha
Talking about how the status of rainwater harvesting can be improved, Mr Arunachalam
says,

By educating and creating awareness about the health and cost benefits of rainwater
harvesting we can encourage people to invest in conserving rainwater and actually using
it. Also, the government should form rainwater harvesting expert high level committee to
promote the idea.

The rainwater harvesting expert is also of the opinion that banks should lend loan to
house and apartment owners to implement rainwater harvesting by engaging experts.

After his retirement in 2005, the former chief engineer started rainwater harvesting
consultancy. Since then he has established rainwater harvesting infrastructure in 700
structures and 100 factories. While working he helped100 government buildings harvest
rainwater.

Currently, he is helping his village Kalal, from where his story began, in implementing the
rainwater harvesting system in a lake called ‘Chinna Urani’. Parallely he plans to submit
his proposal to the Prime Minister and Finance Minister and approach apartment and
residents association in Madurai to educate and encourage them to harvest rainwater.

We shouldn’t blame the central or state government for the prevailing or impending water
crisis. The government can’t manufacture water. Each and every household should
implement rainwater harvesting system and reap its benefits, signs off Mr Arunachalam.

Also Read: Railways To Build Reservoirs In Bullet Train Depots To Harvest Rainwater For
Maintenance
TAGSTAMIL NADUWATER CONSERVATIONWATER CRISIS
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