Recycling Rainwater Has Helped This Bengaluru Family Meet All Its Water Needs For 28 Years

Rainwater - a pure and natural form of water - is the only water used in the home of A R Shivakumar and his family in Bengaluru.

For 28 years, A R Shivakumar and his family have lived in a house they built in Vijayanagara in Bengaluru. And in all these years, they have met all their water needs completely with rainwater. When Shivakumar studied rainfall data from the India Meteorological Department (IMD) he realised Bengaluru received enough rain to make this very feasible.

Mr. Shivakumar said, "Bengaluru receives nearly 900 mm plus, nearly 40 inches of rainfall every year. For a 60x40 plot, it translates into 2,23,000 litres of water in a year. Then I calculated how much water we require for the whole year. It was 1,50,000, I thought if we harvest this water we will have water for the whole year. And the longest gap between two good showers of rain that we can harvest is only 100 days. So if we have water stored for 100 days, then throughout the year we can manage.”

He further explained, "How much is the 100 Days requirement? We are water conservative people and I thought we should use not more than 400 litres - 100 litres per capita per day for 4 people. 40,000 storage can tide over your requirement. We built 45,000 litres of storage - safety for drought years and guests. From that day till now - this is the 28th year running and we don't have a city municipal water supply at all. We don't receive tankers or any other water source. We have crystal clear rainwater for drinking and all other purposes in our house. I have not paid a bill in my life for water."

The roof area is around 1800 sq feet. Mr. Shivakumar has calculated the amount of rainwater received and needed for usage by the family.