Rooftop Rainwater Catchment is an efficient and affordable solution to problems of shortage of water in developing areas. It offers a network system of safe drinking water supply to every house in a village or community. It provides a self-sustainable alternative scheme for drinking water, reduces groundwater pollution, contributes to health improvement of the community and allows households become more productive, significantly reducing time spent on providing for family water needs.

The harvested rainwater will meet drinking needs of the households for 9-12 months.

Rooftop Rainwater Harvesting scheme is at the stage of active preparation for implementation in India in 50 villages of the State of Rajastan  during 2010 – 2012.

The villages of Rajasthan, India, with a population of 56 million, are faced with the perennial problem — acute shortage of drinking water. Rajasthan is a drought prone State — 40 droughts during the last 52 years. For example, in 2000-2001, 31 districts of its 32 districts faced acute shortage of water. Nearly 75% of its villages, 30,583 of 41,538 villages, suffered due to 50% reduction in crop yield, jeopardizing the lives of nearly 32 million people. Women have to walk, often miles, to fetch drinking water — a day may be lost just to meet family’s drinking water needs. The groundwater has receded to 300 – 400 feet depth due to over-exploitation.  Dug-wells have dried. About 30% of the hand pumps have gone dry.

Aakash Ganga aims to provide an economically sustainable and lasting solution to this problem. AG channels rooftop rainwater from every house, through gutters and pipes, to a network of multi-tier underground reservoirs. AG is designed to harvest 80% of the annual rainfall from the rooftops. AG will assist the government in shifting water transport allocations from an annual expense to an infrastructural investment.

To find out more about the rooftop rainwater harvesting technique and its implementation, please see our executive summary to learn more (please click on the image of the brochure above).