Wipe my ass with grease or snow
Just advertise it with a neon glow
Harp about it or shrink within
The market’s got us spiraling
Out control of even common sense
Collars will feed as the planet it bends
Corporate nonsense packaged and sold
Inciting a greed with no use for the old
Disposable, pre rigged, obsolete, out of fashion
Insane methinks what to do but cash in
I came to take a look at Sohei’s system and left with so much more . . . Just came from a meeting with the government chemist on apam napat’s wbsite . . he was a bit cagey about talking about his secrets as so many Indian scientists seems to be, but I gave him a bit of my mind and soon he was fascinating me with his list of inventions . . purifying activated filter wall for a well . . . micro water purifier based on the nakamoto model. He also seemed to be very involved with ground water extraction and the effects it seemed to have on their way of life. The ground water in shantiniketan varies from 10 feet below to 30 feet below the surface. There are a million lakes large and small all over the place! Their sewage of course flows into these lakes and then into the rivers. Sreeni’s segregated tanks with the aerobic and anaerobic filters would work like a charm here! I tried to sell hi the idea bit by bit. An indo german joint venture water supply scheme has been founded in the town, but it draws ground water and pipes it to the people, which people can already see the effects off in their declining water table. The irony is astounding, in a place which has never known water shortage, to pump up the ground water in a centralized large scale manner and pipe it across the city is sheer wastefulness of resources. At a huge human and evironment cost as professor chandan pointed out the further the water table recedes the less productive the soil becomes.
Sohei’s new water tower project is also interesting, drawing water from a water wheel in the river, thus eliminating the need for electricity. The ideas Sohei has are indeed noble but dealing with Indian conditions and the execution standard here as well as the apathy of maintenance can reduce the greatest ideas to ruins!
What can be done, a simple pond based water treatment system and community level water treatment plants seems to be the obvious answer. It would best come from the municipality, but that’s a whole new story. If a german company can make water extraction and treatment plants then I figure an Indian one could try its hand at sustainable water supply and treatment systems too . . . it would have to be il&fs type touts, actually not really, through high level government links a lot can be achieved in the dimension of greasing municipal wheels!
