City zoo brings back 3 old wells to life

Bringing back three extremely old wells to life will now ensure that the Veermata Jijabai Bhosale (VJB) Zoo does not have to depend on BMC's water supply for irrigation purposes, thus saving nearly 2.5 lakh litres of water that was used daily for gardening and other purposes.

As per officials from the Zoo, the project to become 'self-sustainable' for irrigation purposes that includes watering of plants and gardens in approximately 50,000 sq meter area was initiated in 2017 and has just been completed last week.

"There were three extremely old wells lying defunct in our zoo premises and keeping in mind the huge quantity of water used daily we began working on how water from these wells could be used instead of BMC supplied water and thus the decision to rejuvenate the wells was taken," shared Dr Sanjay Tripathi, Director of VJB Zoo, adding that by February they will only require BMC water that is used for drinking purposes, which is approximately 50,000 to 60,000 litres.

The wells were first desilted and once they were ready all the three were interlinked (to ensure water from one well could be pumped into the other) and from July work was initiated for laying a network of pipelines all across the zoo premises, enabling water to be distributed all across the length and breadth of the zoo.

The well that has been made the main reservoir from where water is supplied all across the Zoo is located outside the Humboldt penguin's enclosure building, while the deepest well is the one located in what was earlier part of Poddar mills and now part of the Zoo.

NEW SOURCE

• Veermata Jijabai Bhosale Zoo does not have to depend on BMC’s water supply for irrigation purposes
   
• The project to become ‘self-sustainable’ for irrigation purposes was initiated in 2017 and has just been completed last week