With the city continuing to reel under acute water shortage, the time has come for us to look at other alternative sources to get around this problem and make intelligent use of available water. "With tons of rainwater going waste, we should try and make optimum use of it and channelise it in a way that would even help solve our water woes," says Ajit Gokhale, who for the past 22 years has made rainwater harvesting his passion and to educate people about it his goal. Gokhale has played a key role in helping 200 housing societies in the city and 93 villages across the state in becoming self-sufficient with respect to their water requirements. "Population explosion and change in the pattern of rainfall has created an atmosphere where rainwater harvesting has become a necessity," said Gokhale, who runs a consultancy firm called Natural Solutions. He also works as a consultant with an NGO, Eureka Forbes Institute of Environment, which provides free technical guidance to anyone who wants to set up a rainwater harvesting facility. Gokhale started out as a professor of Botany and then joined Ion Exchange Ltd, a company that pioneers in water treatment. This is when he was inspired to take up the cause of rainwater harvesting. "I realized that the simplest and cheapest way of making salt water potable is to catch rainwater where it falls," said Gokhale. His first project in 1986 was to install a rainwater harvesting facility in a village; it failed because of lack of support from villagers. Instead of getting discouraged, however, he strove hard and took up the cause in a big way. Today Gokhale works with several NGO's like SHARE (Society to Heed Aid Restore and Educate), Centre for Social Action and The Bridge Public Charitable Trust, which have helped many villages become self-reliant in their water needs. "The success rate of rainwater harvesting is site specific and can cost anywhere between a few thousands to a few lakhs. However, the benefits are great especially for a city like Mumbai which has high intensity rainfall over a short period of time," said Gokhale. He believes that if harvested rainwater is used for purposes like toilet flushing, car washing or gardening, it can reduce the amount of water used from water resources provided by the BMC, as well as decrease the water that goes onto the streets of the city. "Rainwater harvesting is gaining ground because the increasing shortage of water is being acutely felt everywhere," said Gokhale. "Individuals feel the need to set up a rainwater harvesting facilities but societies rarely come forward to take action. They need to realize that rainwater harvesting will not only benefit them in the long term, but will also do good to the environment," he adds hopefully.