rajkot jamnagar a coastal city with the arabian sea located almost at a walking distance has been facing drinking water crisis for decades now not only has it seen many spells of droughts the ground water here is also very salty with high tds levels thanks to sea water seepage therefore residents were forced to remain totally dependant on the jamnagar municipal corporation jmc for supply of narmada water however city gets water on alternate days and that too for 20 minutes only again the force too is very low hence residents faced immense hardships for two to three months in the peak summer months till monsoon arriveat this point nonprofit organization navanagar nature club decided to solve the citys water crisis through experimentation it tried to rejuvenate the borewells by recharging them with fresh water and started with patel colony and punchvati two posh but dry areas of the city located barely 12km from the sea shore the experimentation bore fruit and they could rejuvenate 1276 borewells in these localitites nitish kesaria a businessman from the colony said corporation supply was really insufficient in fulfilling our daily need for water and so we have to depend on other sources this technique of recharging borewells have worked well with us and we are selfsufficient now the club then organized awareness camps in various other areas of the city to sensitize people about how to recharge dry borewells and its volunteers comprising civil engineers also gave interested people free advice on how to go about with it president and founder of the club vijay jadeja said the ground water level was as deep as 100 feet and with very high tds levels rendering it unfit for consumption our members guided plumbers how to recharge the borewells successfullyhimanshu jani a member of the club and also the president of jamnagars federation of architect and civil engineers association said after recharging borewells to suffice till monsoon people reap benefits after the first monsoon rain itself the rain water collected on the terraces is diverted to the borewell through pipes we make a screen chamber of gravel and 10 to 20 mm metal to filter out impurities from the water which then recharges the underground water the water condition in the cityafter ranjit sagar dam dried up in january jamnagar city was left totally dependant on narmada water the und and sasoi dam too dried up leaving the city with a population of nearly 75 lakh people requiring 110 mld million litre per day severely parched jmc constructed a 51km pipeline last year from padadhri at the cost of rs 65 crore to get water to the city under sauni scheme from aji3 dam