Let us go to Kumarakom first. Kumarakom of Kottayam – the land gifted with back waters is a wonderful tourist destination of Kerala. ‘Water water everywhere! But not even a single drop to drink!’ – That’s the case of this green village. Though water is abundant, it’s not suitable for drinking. Unscientific farming methods of Kuttanad pollute water a lot! That’s the reason why Agriculture and Research centre of Kumarakom decided to find a feasible solution to this problem.

Earlier the 7 hectare land with pond and water purification plant belonged to a British named Baker. But it has become useless due to dumping of waste. The first initiative taken by the research centre was to remove the waste using JCB.  Then a bund was made in the middle of the pond. As clay of this place is of cement’s quality, it was mixed with coke and edges of pond were strengthened. Then ramacham plants were planted around the pond. To check the over flow of pond, pipes were fitted around the pond. In the sand berth just near the pump house, net was spread. It acted as natural filter.

Unit to distil iron content, unit to check the pH value of water, chlorination unit and detoxification of ultra violet plant are used to distill water. In the research centre, plant with distillation capability of 2000 litres and reverse oxidation capacity of 1000 litres function now. To ensure the quality of water, water is tested once in every week. Total expense for this plant was just below 5 lakh rupees and now, it’s possible to filter water at the rate of below 5 paise per litre. Now the people and commercial blocks completely depend on this plant for water.

Now let me give you another instance. Let us go to Anakayam Agriculture and Research centre. Through three rain harvesting plants, water collected by this centre is above 75 lakh litre. 25 acres of agriculture is solely dependent on this project. Earlier annual income of this research centre was below 5 lakhs. But now its number comes in crores. It happened only due to the rain harvesting program happened a couple of years back. But the total expense to build these three plants was below 14 lakhs.

In those water reservoirs, fish is also grown, giving the research centre an additional income; it comes in lakhs. It’s possible to build reservoirs using concrete. Yet spreading synthetic plastic in the ground is the cheap method and in this plant also, same technique is used. We can use the same technique in our homes also, to make use of rain water in a wise way and help ourselves during drought summer season.   

Article Posted By : Sandhya Rani  On June 28, 2013lView All Articles

Lost water is lost forever. So save it if you can

Article Source :

http://www.veethi.com/articles/salt-less-drinking-water---a-few-instances-for-you-article-2483.htm

Keywords :
save water , drinking water , distillation plants , distillation plants of Kerala