Biome Environmental Trust designed and installed a rooftop rainwater harvesting system at Panathur Government School with funding support from Ittiam Systems Pvt Ltd

1. RAINWATER HARVESTING AT PANATHUR GOVERNMENT HIGHER PRIMARY SCHOOL
Biome Environmental Trust was approached by Rotary Club members to understand and
review the water and sanitation situation in the Panathur Government School. The Rotary
Club had been engaging with the school already. The school was facing issues related to
water and sanitation primarily due to unavailability of adequate water, though it is not very
severe. There is no flooding in the school.
School overview
Management Department of Education, GoK
Type Co-educational
Medium of instruction Kannada
Residential Partially
Teachers 6
Classes 1st to 7th
Classrooms and other buildings 4 blocks
Hostel 35 students
Playground Present
Anganwadi and Health Centre Present in the premises of the school
Meals Midday meals from ISKCON’s Akshayapatra
Water management Suvarna Jala Scheme
Headmistress Ms Nagarathnamma
Students 215
Toilets Infrastructure is present but not in use currently
because of unavailability of water and lack of
cleanliness
Borewell Present but not yielding
Sump Present, capacity 10,000 litres
Classroom block Hostel block

2. Toilet block Sump
Overview of existing infrastructure
1. The school gets its water supply through tankers thrice a week funded by Rotary
2. The school has a borewell of unknown depth that was not yielding
3. Infrastructure for rooftop rainwater harvesting was present and the rooftops were
connected with downtake pipes. However this system was in disrepair and unused
4. The downtake pipes were broken and needed to be refurbished
5. The rainwater harvesting structure was built under the Suvarna Jala Scheme
6. The school also has a sump, the capacity of which is 10,000 litres. It required
cleaning and maintenance before resuming any operations.

3. Proposed plan for rainwater harvesting
⮚ Connecting downpipes to the existing Suvarna Jala tank.
⮚ Fixing and cleaning the tank. Adding taps for water withdrawal
⮚ Redirecting water from Anganwadi rooftop + surface runoff into a 5ft diameter and
30ft deep well for recharge of the existing borewell
The work was taken up in the latter half of 2017 with funding support from Ittiam Systems
Pvt Ltd. The rooftop RWH system was installed, but the recharge well was not dug. The
school management said that the RWH system reduced their tanker needs in the monsoon
by one tanker a week.