Accepted Papers - 3.pdf - UNESCO

these villages, the people themselves are managing
their water resources and have set an example for
the rest of the country.
Gurunathan and Karuppusamy made an
attempt to share DHAN Foundation’s experience
in one of the water starved districts,
Ramanathapuram in Tamil Nadu State, about the
people participatory oorani development and
management in people’s drinking water for survival.
The authors confidently argue that deepening or
construction of oorani in Ramanathapuram district
is the simple and very effective RWH method, which
can cater the drinking water needs of the people
throughout the year even during the scarce situation.
In Chennai, the RWH was initiated by Chennai
Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board
(CMWSSB) and Tamil Nadu Water Supply and
Drainage Board (TWAD).
SCOPE OF THE STUDY
RWH is the important task to be done in war
foot urgency in order to augment the degrading
ground water in terms of quantity and quality. This
RWH should be done from the topmost level to
lowermost level viz Government to individual. To
increase the use of RWH system, the knowledge
about it with the public must be analyzed. For this,
the Questionnaire survey is the best methodology.
It will give both qualitative and quantitative
information from public. An attempt is made to
study the public awareness in RWH in Padmavathi
Nagar of Chennai city with the help of
Questionnaire. From the results obtained, any
improvement activity can be decided and
implemented in RWH with the help of public
participation.
This paper focuses on Public awareness in
RWH in Padmavathi Nagar, Chennai. Padmavathi
Nagar is located in between Vadapalani and
Virugampakkam, having a plot area of 16,556 m 2
and roof area of 8,584 m 2 approximately. The lay
out map is shown in Figure 1. It has 69 plots out of
which 59 were constructed with buildings. In that,
10 are apartments containing an average of 10 flats.
The soil condition of this area is clayey in nature
up to 5 feet and after that it is sandy in nature. The
average depth of water table from ground level is
8.5 m. The water colour is yellow. In this area, all
the houses have only roof top RWH systems. Most
459
of the RWH systems are connected to open wells
through filters. Awareness was created among the
residents of Padmavathi Nagar on one to one basis
on the need for efficient RWH structures.
RESEARCH DESIGN
Slesinger and Stephenson in the Encyclopedia
define research “as the manipulation of things,
concepts of symbols for the purpose of generalizing
to extend, correct or verify knowledge, whether that
knowledge aids in construction of theory or in the
practice of an art”. Research methodology is a way
to systematically solve the research problem.
Research design is a basic plan that guides the data
collection and analysis of a research project. “A
Research Design is the arrangement of conditions
for collection and analysis of data in a manner that
aims to combine relevance to the research purpose
with economy in procedure.” This research falls
under the category of descriptive research of
conclusive nature.
DESCRIPTIVE RESEARCH
Descriptive research studies are those studies,
which are concerned with describing the
characteristics of a particular individual or of a
group. Descriptive Research is characterised by a
carefully planned and structured research design.
Poate and Daplyn explained the questionnaire
design, which consists of six principles.
i) Content: include the minimum number of
topics to meet the objectives;
ii) Time for the interview must be kept reasonable;
iii) The question should be easy to use as an
interview guide for the enumerator and as an
instrument for recording answers;
iv) It should be self contained;
v) Coding for analysis should be done directly
on the form; and
vi) Smart presentation, careful thought should be
given to the quality of the paper, clarity of printing
& presentation and the spaces provided for
recording answers. They also explained about the
coding system in the text book.
QUESTIONNAIRE SURVEY
To know about the public awareness in RWH
system, a nondisquised structured questionnaire was
prepared both in English and Tamil. The