Slug: World Water Day Celebrated
Ahmedabad: When water meters were installed at Amrashirish Bungalows, the results shocked the residents: each household was consuming far more water than they had imagined. Within months, awareness turned into action, and daily usage plummeted by 62%. The numbers highlight a powerful truth: monitoring consumption leads to behavioural change.
On World Water Day observed on March 22, experts stress that responsible water use begins with understanding how much we actually consume. In Ahmedabad, several societies are proving that small adjustments can lead to significant conservation.
“One of management’s core principles is that you can only manage what you can measure,” says Prof Mercy Samuel from CEPT University’s Faculty of Management. She has studied the impact of water metering and documented it in a case study that is now part of a US research repository. “The process begins with persuading residents of the financial benefits. Many societies we studied conducted a ‘dry run,’ generating bills without actual charges, allowing members to see their daily consumption firsthand,” she explains.
For the first time, it gave the members an idea of how much water they use daily. As societies started charging a fee for water usage and linked it to maintenance, almost all the societies saw a reduction in water usage. Experts said that it did not mean cutting down on essential usage but reducing the wastage caused often by faulty taps, faucets or pipes, or running water for daily activities ranging from washing utensils to watering plants.
A CEPT University study from 2022 indicated that the western city areas have about 37% of the city’s population, but these areas use about 51% of the total city water. Residential apartments accounted for about half of the total water consumed in the city. In addition to the piped water supply, the citizens also spend upwards of Rs 100 crores to pump groundwater.
Experts said that while water meters are one part, several of the residential societies are using water-saving measures ranging from choosing appropriate plants to creating underground water tanks for rainwater harvesting to regularly repairing the faulty pipes, especially in garden areas.