Badarpur flyover, an example in conservation

A 4.4-km-long six lane road surface — complete with side verges and the open areas in between the various arms of the elevated highway — was a promising prospect. Nivedita Khandekar reports.

A 4.4-km-long six lane road surface — complete with side verges and the open areas in between the various arms of the elevated highway — was a promising prospect.

HT Image

And, in a perfect display of the increasing trend of how large public infrastructure projects can conserve rainwater, the National Highways Authority of India used integrated storm water management and ground water recharge mechanism for its Badarpur elevated road project, connecting Delhi and Faridabad.

The National Highways Authority of India has given the project to a private concessionaire Hindustan Construction Company on Build-Operate-Transfer basis. It was HCC’s first site to adopt the United Nation’s Water Mandate initiative, which included water conservation measures and establishing a system to record water usage at the site.

Rainwater harvesting system was clubbed with water re-use and recycle methodologies including recharging the groundwater table using the storm water flowing from the elevated highway.

In 14 months during construction, as much as 23,149 kilolitre of water has been saved.

Recycling of water was done using the water extracted while de-watering and re-used for various purposes, thus saving up to 6500 KL water.

Hindustan Construction Company’s Manoj Chaturvedi said: “After the project was operational, we have two rainwater harvesting pits fitted with water metres, which helped us save 80 KL in 2012.”