Women achiever Kalpana Ramesh a water warrior

Kalpana Ramesh, one of the seven women achievers who took over Prime Minister Narendra Modi's social media accounts on the International Women's Day on Sunday, is a water warrior.

An architect, who specialises in interiors, Kalpana advocates rainwater harvesting. Her solution is simple -- channelise the rainwater from rooftops to a storage tank to reduce dependence on tankers.

Kalpana, who shifted to Hyderabad from the US more than a decade ago, hit upon the idea when she saw the city's dependence on tankers and water cans. As her family also had to order tankers every week to meet water requirement, she, along with husband, began harvesting rainwater on their terrace.

According to her, water conservation is simple. All that is required is outflow pipes from the terrace to a sump. The water passes through a small filter bed of coal and sand to remove soil and leaves and flows into the storage tank.

Since she installed a tank in her house in the Gachibowli area to collect rainwater, her family no longer requires tankers.

A volunteer with the Society for Advancement of Human Endeavour (SAHE), she is not only creating awareness on water conservation but also helping homeowners, apartment complexes and offices to harness rainwater.

Following the success, she and her team launched the initiative to recycle grey water. Under this initiative, water that flows out from showers and kitchen is directed towards a physical filtering system before leading to a tank and then to a recycling unit to remove chemicals. This recycled water can be used for gardening and cleaning purposes.

The garden in Kalpana's house is nourished by recycled water. She has several fruit trees and a small vegetable garden on the terrace.

With the SAHE volunteers, Kalpana promoted the 'Save 10K bores' initiative to help revive defunct borewells, by directing rainwater to a recharge pit in the vicinity. She has got around 200 families in and around the city to repair their defunct borewells and adopt water harvesting methods.

Working hand-in-hand with the GHMC and a couple of NGOs, Kalpana is now a part of the City Lake Action Committee to conserve lakes. IANS