Bengaluru water crisis: Actor Chiranjeevi’s take on building eco-friendly houses

As Bengaluru city, as well as a major part of Karnataka grappled with an acute water shortage, actor Chiranjeevi Konidela gave his two cents on how to build eco-friendly houses and explained how he built his farmhouse in the tech hub.
Eco-friendly houses that conserve water and have working rainwater harvesting systems are the need of the hour, he said. Taking to social media, the Telugu film star expanded on the usage of recharge wells and permaculture principles to save the vital source of life.
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“As we all know, water is the most precious commodity, water scarcity makes daily life difficult. There may be a shortage of water in Bengaluru today. Tomorrow it can happen anywhere. So I want to use this opportunity to emphasise the need to build houses that help conserve water. Here I am sharing what I did for my farmhouse in Bengaluru,” He wrote on micro-blogging site ‘X’, formerly Twitter.
“Recharge wells 20-36 feet deep and are installed at strategic points throughout the site with sufficient slopes to direct surface water flow to them. Each well has a filter system, a silt trap with different aggregates, i.e., rock sizes and sand, to facilitate the passage of water through the layers,” He added.
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“A recharge well – compared to a recharge pit – can store more water and allow water to flow more slowly through porous layers in the substrate to reach deeper aquifers,” He further wrote.
On permaculture principles, he said, “A major outcome of permaculture is the reduction in water demand. This is achieved by mulching, using dead leaves and wood chips along with a suitable ground cover, and using a garden that minimises evaporative loss from the soil.”
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Around 6,900 borewells across the city have dried up. That, coupled with deficient rainfall in the last monsoon season, has resulted in a drought-like situation in several districts of Karnataka. The state also saw rising temperatures while battling the water crisis, prompting the health ministry to issue guidelines for a heatwave on Tuesday.