IMPORTANCE
With two thirds of the
earth's surface covered by water and the human body consisting of 75 percent of
it, it is evidently clear that water is one of the prime elements responsible
for life on earth. Contrary to the past, our recent developed
technological society has become indifferent to this miracle of life. Our
natural heritage (rivers, seas and oceans) has been exploited, mistreated and
contaminated.
Getting water appears to
be easy and cheap, but if its importance is not understood now, it could become
costlier. To tackle the problem in a meaningful way methods of rain water
harvesting should be used as a basic facility .Wasteful
use of water should be checked. Only 0.5 per cent—nearly half of this in
Maharashtra—is under drip irrigation and 0. 7 %. There is large-scale pollution
of water as a result of industrialisation and urbanisation. This trend has got
to be checked.Although one-eighth of India is declared as food .The economy in
water-use in this sector will have two benefits. Firstly, the saved water may
be used to meet the demand in other sectors. Secondly, the affluents thrown in
the water bodies will be less.
Rain water
harvesting is one of the most effective methods of water management and water
conservation. It is the term used to indicate the collection and storage of
rain water used for human, animals and plant needs.The harvesting of rainwater simply involves the collection of water from surfaces on
which rain falls and subsequently storing this water for later use. Normally
water is collected from the roofs of buildings and stored in rainwater tanks.
The
benefits of rainwater harvesting are numerous; the following are some of them
1.
The
gathered rainwater can be used for agricultural purposes. The environment
may be helped to get rid of the tendency to drought.
2. The requirement of
water for feeding the live-stocks can be met.
3. Wastage of water
flowing through drain, gutter, or any water-cause can be stopped and damage to
water-course of any type may be stopped.
4. Water-logging on
roads and thoroughfares can be checked and localities can be saved from being
inundated.
5. The quantity of water
can be raised and soil erosion can be checked.
Roof top rain water harvesting can be a very
effective tool to fight the problem of water shortage particularly in urban
areas. Roof top rain water harvesting depends upon the amount of rainfall and
the roof top area.
If we see example of
drought-hit Latur in Maharashtra, the people did not conserve water and faced
the consequence. So it is everybody's responsibility to ensure that there is no
wastage of water.
People were receiving drinking water once in 15 days. Some people died and many left latur. The Sugar Factory has a
reservation of about 0.5 Million Cubic Meters of water that is a whopping 5000
lakh litres of water in the driest months.
As India faces one of its biggest droughts since Independence,
such stories and surrounding conflicts are the new normal. Especially for
Marathwada, a region which received 42% deficit rainfall in 2014 and 40% in
2015. Before settling at 40% deficit in 2015, Marathwada showed the highest
deficit in the country at 52% for a long time during monsoon 2015.
The Water Train arrived in Latur on 12th
April, carrying 5 lakh litres of water for the more than 400,000 people of
Latur City. This situation could have been prevented if people would have
installed rainwater harvesting system.
