Vadodara government schools aim to save 10 crore-litre rainwater

VADODARA: When Vadodara witnessed heavy floods last monsoon, lakhs of litres of rainwater simply went down the drain due to lack of harvesting infrastructure.
However, if the district sees an average monsoon this year, it will save at least 10 crore litres of rainwater. And, the water saviours will be none other than nearly 1,000 government schools that have been equipped with low-cost rainwater harvesting systems.
The project, which was completed in a record time, drew praise from Prime Minister Narendra Modi too, who made a special mention of it during his ‘Mann Ki Baat’ on June 28.
All primary and secondary schools are now equipped with the system and the project will be dedicated to the nation by chief minister Vijay Rupani through e-lokarpan on Monday.
“There is an inspiring story from Vadodara in Gujarat. Here, the district administration and locals have started a unique campaign. Under this campaign, 1,000 schools of Vadodara now have rainwater harvesting systems. As per an estimate, around 10 crore litres of water that would have got wasted, will be saved every year through this initiative. To protect our nature and environment during this monsoon season, we should also take a few such initiatives,” the PM said in his radio address.
“The project was started in September 2019 and we had targeted September 2020 for completion. But we could finish it within nine months,” Vadodara collector Shalini Agrawal told TOI.
Under Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), schools receive grants in the range of Rs 3 lakh to Rs 5 lakh for installing rainwater harvesting systems. “But with this grant, we cannot install such a system at all the schools. We consulted SSA engineers who developed low-cost models which have been adopted and installed at the schools,” said Agrawal.
“Before the campaign started, 37 schools had harvesting systems installed through SSA grants. Now, there are 1,000 schools equipped with the system,” said Vadodara district primary education officer Archana Chaudhari.
“As per an estimate, just 8 % rainwater is harvested while rest 92 % gets simply wasted,” said Agrawal.