Rain Water Harvesting Structure

              Khatiya (IWMP-1) project is located in Lakhapar Taluka, Kutch District of Gujarat state. The nearest town is Dayapar which is about 12 Km from Lakhapar. The project area lies in the edges of salt deserts of Kutch also known as Rann of Kutch and falls under the Desert Prone area according to DoLR Classification. It is a very poor and desolate village on the border of India and Pakistan. The village population is 324. The literacy rate in the village is 65% per cent. The ground water table was 50 to 60 meter. The quality of ground water was also degraded. The village did not have any reliable source for drinking water. Government was supplying water by tankers before the intervention of the IWMP project. As per socially imposed construct the women in the villages have to spend a lot of time to fetch Drinking water for their households. They need to walk down 2km to the next village to fetch water for their drinking purpose.

           Thus, the availability the perennial availability of drinking water was an acute problem in the Khatiya village. With the inception of the IWMP project the Khatiya village of Kutch district was taken under IWMP 1 in Batch-I in year 2009-10 by DWDU-Kutch. As a part of the participative planning process the drinking water availability was identified as the major problem in the village. The Watershed Development Committees, PIA and Gramsabha decided to build Roof Rain Water Harvesting Structures to have permanent solution of this problem of drinking water. Under this model the rain water seeping from the roof is collected and transferred via PVC pipes to underground tanks for storage and for future use in non monsoon seasons.
 
           Initially 49 Roof Rain Water Harvesting structures were built at cost of 13.23 lacks INR under the project. The structures were built at individual house hold level with the contribution from people living in the households. If the water is not exposed to sunlight, it can remain potable for many years. So an underground tank was built in the house where sunlight could not reach. Minimum capacity of the tank was 8000 liters and minimum size of the tank was 9 ft in width by 9 ft in length and 8 ft in depth.

           As an impact of the intervention in Roof Rain Water Harvesting Structure in the Khatiya village, the availability of drinking water increased by atleast 2 months, by saving time and energy for the women in the village. This structure also increased the quality of the water from “Salty” to “Potable”. With the successful implementation of the Roof Rain Water Harvesting Structure now it became a tradition in the village and now any new house comes up with the Roof Rain Water Harvesting Structure in it. Recently the Narmada supply also reached the village and thus the storage tank in also works to store the Narmada water supply.