When the weatherman forecast rain last week, Dayanand Krishnan hunkered down to installing a rainwater harvesting structure on his 400 sq.ft. terrace.
A do-it-yourself initiative, it was highly cost-effective with the damage being just ₹250. But the next day, when rain siled down the terrace and through the pipe, Dayanand was richer with a drum full of water. The drum can hold up to 225 litres of water and the it got filled up in ten minutes.
The harvest was higher, as it rained for nearly 45 minutes that evening, and the excess water was directed to a sump.
“I had bought the drum to store the piped water supply. Ever since the city started running out of water, the piped supply has not lasted more than 5 to 10 minutes. It takes me and my wife an hour to fill the drum with the water from the street tap but the rain filled it in just 10 minutes! The water is clean and crystal-clear; it will last a couple of days and we are using it to wash vessels and clothes, clean the car and mop the floor,” says Dayanand, a resident of Pradeep and Karthik Avenue in Chitlapakkam.