Imagine if you live in a desert that gets rainfall once in a year, your houses do not have any water pipelines or link to the canals, your only water source is a well that is 3-4 kilometers away from your house. Three members from your family, including men, women and children travel for hours with all the possible utensils they can carry to fetch water each day. Your children will not be able to go to schools and your head of the family will not be able to work because they spend half the day fetching water. This cycle is repeated everyday throughout the year!
This is how the people of the Thar Desert of Pakistan were living until last year.
Since wells were their only source of water, the water table was declining by 11% each year while health problems were rising because most of the water available was saline.
On one hand was extreme droughts, water scarcity, extreme poverty and food insecurity and on the other hand God blessed them with 10 crore* million litters annual rainfall.
If only they could collect the rain water, it could have a intensively healthy impact on the lives of the residents.
Concept of rain water harvesting (RWH)was not new to the people of Thar as they have been trying to collect rain water for ages but the traditional storage like ‘tarai’ (natural ponds) and ‘taanka’ (cylindrical underground tanks), and conventional concrete and brick structures were poor at retaining water.
Last year Sukaar Foundation (SF) who has been working on the rainwater harvesting structures, realized that their water requirement is only 0.25 % of the entire rainfall. If only they could improve their local rainwater harvesting structures their lives could take a U turn.
For this reason they contacted EPCL ( Engro Polymer and Chemical Limited) who produce geomembrane that is used to avoid water seepage in ponds and water bodies.
SF had close links with the community and a deep understanding of their problems while EPCL had the technology of geomembrane and all the technical support that was needed. It was a perfect match!
Soon they came up with models for villages, houses and schools. It fills my heart with joy to share that the water they collected last year in June from the regular rains, lasted till this year until it rained again.
People are using rain water throughout the year that takes 15 minutes to obtain. They are healthier and wealthier because their men are free from the job of fetching and now they can work and improve their living standards. Children can go to schools and animals look happy too. Now that they have water in desert, they are trying to grow their own crops.
Isn't it simply heartwarming? Some people quietly did their work and changed the lives of thousands and they still are working to spread it to all 1.2 million people of the Thar desert.
The concept of rainwater harvesting has captivated me. I dream of Pakistan where RWH has become a common practice. Our agricultural lands, deserts and even the urban areas have learned to use the rainwater wisely.
* Special thanks to SF and EPCL for sharing their research.
· Crore :A unit in theIndian numbering systemequal toten million(10,000,000;