Gurugram: Tulip White residents do their bit, conserve waste RO water
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Gurugram: Tulip White residents do their bit, conserve waste RO water

The initiative was started by Amit Kumar Saxena, a resident of the society who found it difficult to let the RO reject water go waste in drain.

Gurugram: Tulip White residents do their bit, conserve waste RO water The basement where the water is stored

With Gurugram being marked as a “Dark  Zone” by the central ground water board, the residents of Tulip White in sector 69 have taken it on themselves and have initiated a pilot project to recycle and reuse RO rejected water in the society.

The initiative was started by Amit Kumar Saxena, a resident of the society, who found it difficult to let the reject water go waste in the drain. "I did my study and found that the water supplies from Basai Treatment Plant water is 100mg/l which is in the permissible limit of Total Dissolved Solids (TDS). This is a consistent value which is verified from the Gurugram Metropolitan Development Authority (GMDA) Engineer and checked by the professional at the society’s receiving end."

"We have also checked other parameters of the supplied water such as clarity in appearance, odor, pH less than 7. We also checked the TDS of the rejected RO water and found it to be between 95-116mg/l," he added.

According to the World Health Organisation, the standard TDS level below the 300 mg/liter is consider to be excellent wherein NGT allows 500mg/liters at the permissible limit. 

He said, "It is an irony that people don't trust the government supplied water and are using RO system which is removing important mineral and causing undue water wastage. However, we cannot stop using it an individual preference and reliability of government is low."  

Thereafter, Amit collected the data from each household and formulated a plan to collect all the RO reject water and recycle it. He discussed the idea with the RWA of the society and the members agreed to implement it on a pilot basis.

The residents started collecting RO reject water in the basement of the society through unused pipelines connected to each flat. Out of 52 flats in A tower, 32 flats are connected to collect the RO reject water.

 Later, the collected water is mixed in main tanks and re-circulated in the society. "When we mix the RO reject water in the main water supply tank it only increases 7 percent TDS which is again in the permissible limit. To simplify, if we take a glass of saline water and mix it with 1 bucket of normal water, it dilutes and the overall increase in salinity is very low. We constantly monitor the TDS level of water or any other visible anomaly." he added.  

"We have collected 9,120 liters of rejected RO water in eight days from one tower and when we implement it in the complete society it will save around 4,62, 240 liter per month. There is a huge potential for water savings in high-rise societies with a large number of houses in a small area. It will reduce the load on natural water resources and GMDA pumping and treatment costs by 10- 11 percent and if it applies on all then the number would be huge on a city level." Saxena informed.

The idea was supported by the RWA, Krishan Choudhary, President of the society said, "Water conservation is the need of the hour. When we came to know about this idea we agreed to implement it in A tower of the society as a pilot project. We are working on the modality and planning to implement in more tower so that we can conserve water."

The project has got an overwhelming response from the residents of the society. Rahul Aggarwal, a resident of A tower said, "We used to put a bucket to collect the RO reject water but that was not feasible enough to continue for long. We are open to any idea which is eco-friendly and self-sustaining in today's time when we are facing so much of water crisis around the country."

According to a report by the Composite Water Management Index (CWMI) released by the Niti Aayog in 2018 said that 21 major cities (Delhi, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, and others) are racing to reach zero groundwater levels by 2020, affecting access for 100 million people.

However, it said 12 percent of India’s population was already living the 'Day Zero' scenario, because of excessive groundwater pumping, an inefficient and wasteful water management system and years of deficient rains.

Considering this scenario, under the Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a Jal Shakti Abhiyan (JSA) was launched with a mission to conserve water in two phases – Phase 1 ( July 1 to September 15 for all States and Union Territories; and Phase 2 from October 1 to November 30 for States and UTs receiving the retreating monsoon (Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Puducherry and Tamil Nadu).

During the campaign, government officials, groundwater experts, and scientists have to work with state and district officials in India’s most water-stressed districts for water conservation and water resource management.