E F Schumacher overhearing an expert declare "Technology is the answer", famously asked, "What was the question?". That retort is appropriate for the current times when many of India's leading minds are advocating linking of our rivers.

If the question was about water shortages, the answer probably lies in local solutions, micro successes, raising awareness, involving people and altering collective behaviour. The attempt to engineer river linking would be a tragic folly were it not an undoable feat. For a fraction of the money that the State will waste chasing that chimera and fail, citizens and groups are attempting simple, common-sense solutions in water gathering and succeeding.

Little drops of water, says the hackneyed verse, make a mighty ocean;likewise, these small efforts will aggregate to a grand solution someday. And deliver a slap on behalf of Schumacher.

Tamil Nadu leads:

If ever water conservation becomes an urban citizens' movement in India the state of Tamil Nadu will have triggered it. For a long time, builders had been required to put in roof-top rain water harvesting systems [RWH] in new constructions. But recoiling under two years of drought, the government in July 2003 got pro-active: it proclaimed an Ordinance that gave three months for all city buildings to retro-fit RWH systems. Most commendably, all government building had to fall in line as well. Widest publicity was given across the state. Civil servants were asked to make RWH their number one priority. School children marched through most streets urging citizens to act. There was also a stick: if a building missed the October deadline, it's services were liable to be cut and have RWH systems installed by the state, with costs to owners. Things began to happen in quick time.

But we must go back a little, to discover how this political will emerged. Dr Sekhar Raghavan, a professor of physics was one of the first to realise the imperative of saving rain water for Chennai. Chennai has over 1200mm of rain fall per year but routinely lacks even drinking water, whereas a rain starved Rajasthan survives reasonably. What Chennai needed to do was to save the water that fell as rain. Its Ganga was in the skies. the city could link to it with RWH—right now. Raghavan was one of the first to preach RWH. He installed a RWH system in his house and began to organise his neighbourhood.

In far USA, Raghavan's activism made the Chennai-born Ram Krishnan recall how his mother would wake up at 3 am to collect water from a capricious tap. Ram and Raghavan connected and formed the Akash Ganga Trust. The idea was to raise awareness about the effectiveness of RWH as a solution to community water needs. They went on to build the Rain Centre in Chennai where the simplicity of the RWH idea was show-cased. Ram raised Rs. 400,000 and the Centre for Science and Environment [CSE] chipped in with support and inputs. It's a small residence converted into a resource centre. On Aug 21, 2002, Chief Minister Ms. J Jayalaithaa visited this modest building to inaugurate it. That was how it came about that RWH gained everyone's mind-share.

The proof is in the well:

Within a year of that date, a majority of buildings all over Tamil Nadu—and Chennai in particular— had RWH systems in place. Alas that year, rainfall was deficient. But even then results were dramatic enough to amaze and delight everyone. Water levels in wells across Chennai rose. Brackish water tended to get sweeter. There was less flooding in the roads. A lot of the money earlier spent on tanker loads of water, stayed in wallets.

Chennai was on a roll. Today, almost everyone across age and class is a believer. People brag about their wells like they once did about their children. Clubs, schools, hostels, hotels began to rig themselves.

Ram Krishnan is an alumnus of Indian Institute of Technology [IIT] Chennai. Visiting it on one of his annual trips to India, Ram found a list of ironies. IITs are leaders in producing cutting edge technologists. In IIT-Chennai there are 3000 students in 12 hostels named after India's famed rivers. The campus is on 640 acres of wooded land. Yet the institution had to close two months extra recently because water ran out. Following some advocacy by Ram, hostels got steadily rigged for RWH and the water supplies now last longer without having to buy in. Read the full story here

Another Chennai man who is taking the RWH mission seriously is K R Gopinath, an engineer - businessman. His house is something of a RWH perfection. He has also taken the idea to industries in and around Chennai. Many of the TVS group industries, Wimco, Stahl, BEL, Godrej and Boyce -it's growing list- have installed RWH schemes.

Rejuvenated memories:

There had been older, passive, no-cost methods of harvesting rain water. Once there had been ponds in most villages that supplied drinking water. But just as much of urban India has suffered a disconnection between milk and cows' udders, the laudable objective of Rajiv Gandhi Drinking Water Mission for rural India has caused a disconnection between water-supply and ponds. The Mission has taken away personal responsibility for water management and made its supply, the duty of panchayats and block development Officers.

Bore-wells will deliver water, just as plastic pouches deliver milk, was the emerging belief. As a result, these ponds ['oorani' in Tamil] have been neglected and silted over. Ram Krishnan, decided to revive an oorani in Vilathikulam in Thoothukkudi district. He found a thoroughly professional partner in Dhan Foundation in Madurai to help him design the project and a small local group Vidiyal Trust to implement it. Dhan had pioneered what is becoming known as the Edaiyur model, after the first village that revived and modernised an oorani. People, the village panchayat, the government, a guide [eg Dhan] and a donor are all involved. Everyone contributes. In Vilathikulam, the official piped water is unreliable, but the dredged and dressed up oorani, has revived pride and sense of security. Pumps and pipes are still used but the water source is not some bore-well but the visible oorani. [Download a beautifully illustrated report]

Self-help for water has become a major civic activity in Chennai. Temple tanks,those munificences of wise old kings, are being spruced up in Chennai. The Rotary Club helped revive the Kasi Viswanathan temple tank in Aynavaram. The state has desilted and repaired tanks at the Kapaleeswarar and Parthasarathy Perumal temples. But possibly the finest example of people's action is the revival of the 5.5 acre Surya Amman temple tank at Pammal. Mangalam Balasubramanian, an adviser for Danida, has galvanised citizens and local businesses to raise Rs.12 lakhs to restore the splendid tank. Pammal has tasted success and keeps on doing more.

From waste to gray:

Currently in Chennai, water recycling is the big new buzz. Residents are cleaning up and reusing wash waterin toilets and gardens. Alacrity Foundations, one of Chennai's most conscientious builders who installed RWH systems long before the ordinance was issued, is now installing systems to recycle grey water. They believe, over 80% of the water that flows into the sewage can be reused. Hearteningly, there is a steady flow of recycling success stories in Chennai.

Chennai Petroleum, a large refinery and a heavy consumer of water has pioneered an exemplary recycling model. It actually pays Chennai municipal corporation Rs 8 per kilo litre of sewage. After letting it settle in holding tanks, it uses reverse osmosis to filter out solids. The resulting water is 98.8% and good enough to be used as process water. The sludge is let into vermicompost beds to produce manure that is used to maintain the vast campus, lush and green. The scale of operation is enormous: 1,500,000 litres an hour or 40% of the refinery's needs. It's a win-win solution for the city, the business and the environment. The project has generated great interest among other industries.

Stories in the wind:

Anil Agarwal,the founder of CSE was one of the earliest champions of RWH. His credibility gave him the opportunity to address the entire political leadership of the country in 2000 about the need for RWH as a national mission. CSE was quick to support the Chennai Rain Centre idea. Since then it has promoted a second Rain Centre at Meerut, UP. Its web-site Jal Swaraj is a treasure-house of inspiration and information. It has done much to spread the message of RWH. [CSE has deservedly been given the Stockholm Water Prize].

All it takes to solve the water problem are a few high profile examples,usable information and some familiar hardware. Gopinath installed a scheme at Rashtrapati Bhawan. ITC Hotels have installed them in all their hotel buildings. These are stand-out examples that convince individuals to put their money and labour into micro efforts. No subsidy needs to be given, no policing needs to be done and most relevantly, no grandiose schemes like river water linking need to be planned.

The evil of such a massive scheme is not that it is an economic, environmental, political and technological disaster in the making. It is all that— but more sadly, it sucks out people's initiatives and makes them wait in expectation. It sets in motion profiteers to control and trade water. Already, bottled water has been made available in the remotest villages if one is willing to pay a price higher than that for milk. A new generation has forgotten that water is nature's gift for us to receive and cherish.

No one dreams of centrally generating solar power and wheeling it around. It is effective only when used where it falls, for cooking, heating, small scale power etc. Why then this eagerness to meddle with rivers using dams, pumps and pipes?

Shamji Jadhavbhai Antala now 63, is a minimally educated farmer of Rajkot,Gujarat. His Saurashtra Lok Manch Trust is credited with having revived, using simple RWH solutions, 300,000 dead open wells and a million bore-wells across Gujarat. His work to provide water covers a greater population than the monstrous Sardar Sarovar Dam which will serve just 10% of Gujaratis. Clearly, millions have to find their water locally- not have it piped from afar.

Whether or not small is beautiful, where nature's dispersed resources are concerned, it is the only approach that can reach everyone and provide lasting solutions.

April, 2005