Accepted Papers - 3.pdf - UNESCO

As a result, during the rainy season, both the
plant and village run off could be diverted and
collected in the selected mined out pit. The results
have been over-whelming and resulted into creation
of an artificial lake on the outskirts of the plant and
nearby village. Over the years, the water collected
in this lake, on a perennial basis, has helped in
recharging the local aquifer, without much of the
recurring expenses. The only care to be taken is premonsoon
cleaning of the diversion channels to the
pit. The pit has got a storage capacity of 0.50 mcm
and except few of the draught years, rain water
measuring 80-90% of the capacity has been
collected in the said pit each year. The immediate
beneficiaries have been the farmers within one km.
radius of the pit, with water level in their wells going
up and the wells yielding water even during the
summer months.
02. Diversion of water from seasonal nallah:
The success of the scheme above motivated
the company to create more such reservoirs/lakes.
By the year 2004, more space was available to store
large quantum of rainwater in the form of mined
416
Surface Flow Direction
out pits at Ambujanagar. However, the only problem
was “how to get rainwater in these pits and from
where”? No such source was available in the close
vicinity and the rains directly falling in the mined
out areas was grossly inadequate to fill up the pits
to desirable levels.
Brainstorming sessions, survey of the nearby
areas and suggestions from the elderly locals
revealed the possibility of diverting water from a
seasonal nallah flowing around 3.25 kms. north of
these mined out pit. Fortunately, the local surface
topography also favored the flow of water from the
nallah to the pit.
Encourage by the feasibility, a scheme was
drawn to construct a diversion channel from the said
nallah to enable the rainwater to flow to the
designated mined out pit. The scheme and the
resulting benefits were explained to the local
villagers to solicit their views, suggestions and
needful assistance. Simultaneously, needful and
relevant permissions were obtained from the various
govt. authorities for the same. The plan given below
explains the schematic diagram of the arrangement.