Tirupur family shows way with 2-step formula to make best use of rain water

Having no qualms, what with the availability of a 24/7 water supply, 39-year-old Rajathi’s family could be an example of how simple rain water conservation can help one see through days of acute water shortage.

Mentioning herself to be a self-taught water conservationist, Rajathi mentions her family of four managing their daily water needs by conserving the rain water that accumulates on the 1,500 sq ft terrace of their house. They even use the rain water for drinking purposes.

“In most houses, rain water goes waste into the drains. With a little planning and effort from each one of us, the looming water crisis can be tackled easily. My family has never found the lack of water supply to be an issue, thanks to our conservation initiative,” said Rajathi, who along with husband Sadhasivam and her two girl children, reside at Vanjipalayam in Tirupur.

Rajathi’s water conservation system seems to be relatively simple, with two ground level tanks connected by a pipeline storing the rain water hitting her house terrace.

The murky water that is accumulated immediately in the event of rain is first collected in a tank of about 14,000-litre capacity. After all the impurities is filtered off the water, it is then collected in the second tank which of about 9,000-litre capacity. Once these tanks get filled up, remaining water is also stored in a couple of other huge containers.

The stored water is then used by Rajathi’s family for all domestic purposes, including washing of clothes, bathing, cleaning vessels, and also for drinking. Her family also mentions them not even wasting the water used for bathing, and rather have it reused for gardening.

“Just a few rain spells are enough to fill up both the tanks. By this, one would know how much of rain water each one of us has been wasting. Also, we don’t use washing machines, which consume a lot of water and instead resort to washing them by hand,” Rajathi said.

It was a struggle for water for Rajathi’s family too, which made them to subsequently take up water conservation. “It’s a big struggle to get drinking water as the common tap is located almost half a kilometre away from our house in another locality. We used to bring water only in cans loaded on to vehicles,” she said. It was reportedly only during the Lok Sabha election that the local administration woke up to the umpteen representations from residents and set up a common tap in the area. However, there still seems to be no respite as water is reportedly supplied only once in a month. When Rajathi, a native of Coimbatore, got married and settled down in Vanjipalayam a decade ago, she said the water crisis was so severe that they even mulled over relocating elsewhere.

However, their water management techniques have now earned many a followers, with other families in Rajathi’s neighbourood too adopting similar water conservation methods.