“Mumbai should tackle its water woes by adopting rainwater harvesting rather than going for highly-expensive processes such as desalination of sea-water,” said chairman of Bisleri International Private Limited, Ramesh Chauhan.
He also said that Mumbai is not a rain-starved city. Every year Mumbai gets 2.5 meters of rainfall, but nearly 80 percent of this water flows into the sea and barely 20 percent gets soaked in the ground. Chauhan was speaking to reporters after inaugurating a rainwater harvesting facility at International Centre, Goa.
“Desalination is a good idea for Arab countries where there is no water and fuel is free while fuel here is not free. Rainwater harvesting comes at a zero cost.” Chauhan also said that Mumbai does not require special soaking pits to harvest rainwater as there are some 30,000 wells in the city. “Just imagine, if all these wells were in use, there would have been no requirement of distribution or pumping of water”. In addition, 129 lakes in Mumbai would be very useful for charging groundwater. The lakes should be handed over to the corporates, who can manage them as a part of Corporate Social Responsibility. The concept of rainwater harvesting is misunderstood. “People think rainwater harvesting means collecting rainwater and storing it in the tank. Actually it should be used to charge the ground water.”
