Spells of torrential rains-A boon or bane ?

We see torrential rains lashing the cities, at times breaking century’s old records creating  havoc and almost paralysing civic life.Scenes of cities inundated, roads washed off, lives and livelihoods affected, bunds breached,and many rendered homeless and seeking shelter are common during such spells.This has been the scene of many cities as and when it rains cats and dogs.The most recent instance in the city of Hyderabad is an example when the city reported about 192 mm of rain fall in just 24 hours.The water so available is enough to serve the needs of population of the city for more than 90 days if we take the per capita recommended water need as 135 litres per day for all uses.

 

All this is just with the rain fall in one day and one city.Then a logical extrapolation to the huge loss of one of the most precious natural resources ( water ) is simply mind boggling when we think of such a large country as ours and it is high time we take measures on a war footing to prevent this copious supply from simply getting wasted ! 

 

We can consider such spells as Nature’s sporadic bounties to take care of of our water needs provided we are ready to channelise and utilise such a vast unimaginable pool of water simply rushing and gushing in to drains and getting wasted. By tapping such water and letting its free flow in to tanks and canals for potential utility we can have water and avoid havoc too.

 

We the people have much to do in this regard such as prevention of dumping all garbage into drains which get clogged,promotion of greenery and adopting simple but effective rain water harvesting strategies such as going for drain pits etc at the individual level too.Let us remind ourselves that

 

“JAL NAHI THO KAL NAHI “