In unique initiative, Santa Cruz NGO saves 15,000 litres of water daily. A group of youngsters from a local community in Santa Cruz is gifting that much water to the city, enough to meet the water needs of 166 people.
Fifteen thousand litres. How much water is that? For a city battling water scarcity, where every drop counts, it has to be a lot in quantifiable terms. A group of youngsters from a local community in Santa Cruz is gifting that much water to the city on a daily basis.
Just how big is the feat?
Considering that the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), on an average, supplies 90 litres of water per person per day; the quantity of water saved by the group is enough to meet the water needs of 166 people. In times of severe water crisis, it’s an example worth emulating.
The youngsters, who have formed a community-based non-profit organisation — Triratna Prerana Mandal, have achieved the feat by going truly green. The NGO has adopted a public recreation ground and a community-cum-public toilet and does not use fresh water provided by the civic body at both places.
Explaining their success mantra, Mandal’s president Dayanand Jadhav said: “The NGO does not use a single drop of fresh water made available by the BMC for drinking purposes.” Water from a borewell is used to meet the water needs of the toilet users. The community-cum-public toilet is used by 1,500 people daily, including locals and visitors to the locality.
Mandal’s secretary Dayanand Mohite added: “Even for the daily cleaning and maintenance of the facility, only bore well water is used.”
Despite avoiding the use of piped water, the toilet facility is as neat-and-clean as a household toilet. The NGO, which even runs a computer class and an employment and a women self-help group on the top of the toilet, has, in fact, notched up several civic awards for being an inspirational community business organisation.
As for the recreation ground, a recently commissioned ring well is used for watering the ground. Jadhav said that on days when more water is necessary, tanker water is used. “We just won’t use precious drinking water for secondary purposes,” he added.
This attitude of the go-getters has begun to rub off on residents of the nearby buildings and the community. Many of them now wash clothes and utensils drawing water from a nearby well. Volunteers of the NGO, which also has the support of the local ALM (Advanced Locality Management), have also begun going door-to-door with the save water message.
Mohite said: “This is the crunch hour. The city needs to save as much water as possible.”
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