Wells Rescued

Kerala's Thrissur district has managed to arrest groundwater depletion by promoting well-recharge

- Megha Prakash

SEVENTY-FIVE-year-old Asha Menon still remembers the summer of 2009 with disbelief. A resident of water-rich Thrissur district in Kerala she had found the two wells in her estate almost dry. Worried she headed to the district collector’s office. “From there began my journey to become water-sufficient,” she says, with her eyes fixed on the wells now brimming with water. Her journey has some 25,000 co-travellers in the district. Each of them has converted their rooftop into a system that can harvest rainwater and channelise the water into the wells to replenish groundwater.

“This has been made possible by a community-based government programme, Mazhapolima,” says Jos C Raphael, director of the programme. The district administration of Thrissur initiated the programme in 2008 to arrest fast depletion of groundwater in the district. It has some 0.45 million open wells that cater to 70 per cent of the drinking water needs.

Under Mazhapolima, officials decided to recharge all wells using rainwater harvested from rooftops.

Kerala has been experimenting with such schemes since 2002. In 2004, the government amended its Kerala Municipality Building Rules to make rooftop water harvesting mandatory for all new government buildings. But none of the schemes have achieved the success and acceptance as Mazhapolima, claim officials. And for a reason.