Amidst growing concerns to save energy by hoteliers, Suryagarh Jaisalmer is taking the initiative to a new level by constructing a 3 crore litre rain harvesting structure to conserve water. The construction of the structure is already underway and will complete by the end of August this year.The hotel believes that this would help it meet its off season demand and also save on the transport used earlier to procure water through tankers which would then save consumption of diesel and reduce overall carbon footprint. “This area where we are constructing the lake is close to the hotel and was naturally low lying with a huge catchment area. We decided to buy it and make a rain harvesting structure on it. Owning to the non permeable layer of bentonite in the soil of the region, massive runoffs from rain water are generated even with a small amount of rainfall. By building this structure we intend to capture this water which otherwise just gets wasted, as well as the overflow from hotel's rain water harvesting tanks,” said Manvendra Singh Shekhawat, Managing Director of Suryagarh Jaisalmer. “At Suryagarh we believe in the three "R" theory of reduce, reuse, recycle,” he further added. The hotel on a usual day sources close to 12-15 tankers from Dabla which is 30 km’s from the hotel premises. Since it is a challenge to build an adequate water supply in the region, the hotel is using more ways to save up on the natural resource. “All taps contain aerators, which increase the water's force and reduce outflow, saving water. Using these aerators saves up to 50% of water. In addition in our staff cafeteria we have taps operating on timers,” Shekhawat said. Further the hotel uses devices such as concealed cistern which uses 6 litres of water per flush as against 15-20 litres used in conventional flushes. Also the urinal flush valve’s have infra red detectors which ensures a definite flush after every use preventing unwanted flushing of timer set systems. Other measures taken by the hotel is treatment of waste water to use for irrigation and plants being put on drip irrigation which has helped the hotel to reduce water usage to one tenth of the required quantity.
Source