Rainbow Drive layout

The Rainbow Drive Layout situated on Sarjapur Road, Bangalore is not connected to the BWSSB piped network, and is completely dependent on the community borewell water supply system managed by the Plot Owners Association (POA).  The layout lies in a 34-acre stretch of land and contains 360 plots, of which 200 are occupied.  With four of its six borewells defunct and regular monsoon flooding at the layout’s gate, the POA decided to implement a comprehensive water management strategy that consisted of groundwater management, demand management and going forward, and wastewater management.

There was a long engagement with the residents to communicate and educating them about the problems of water.  Households were encouraged to invest in rooftop harvesting for storage or recharge, and to date around 30 households have invested in household level harvesting.  In addition, the POA has invested in 20 recharge wells in the common areas as a collective investment over two phases.  The combination of individual and collective investments resulted in over 50 recharge wells in the 34-acre layout – more than one well per acre.  This has had an immediate impact on the layout’s flooding problem, which has virtually disappeared despite an unusually wet monsoon this past season.

The POA also investigated the true production cost for delivering borewell water to the residents and found the water tariffs to be greatly under-priced.  They subsequently implemented a comprehensive tariff system to ensure that the true cost of water was reflected in the price people pay for it.  This has resulted in reduced wastage of water.  This layout is currently the subject of a monitoring exercise by Biome to document the net effect of these water management reforms.  Today, Biome and the POA are exploring the possibilities for improving the layout’s wastewater management systems.

Key Metrics

• Total number of households implementing RWH systems   -   30 (a mix of storage and groundwater recharge)
• Total number of recharge wells invested in by the POA   -   20
• Total no of recharge wells in the layout   –   50+ wells (approx capacity 200 KL capacity)