For 92-year-old Mumbai resident, Navin Chandra, age is just a number. That’s because his age didn’t deter him from making huge changes when he decided to move into the Sealine Housing Society back in 2000.
Regardless of how much older he was, he managed to transform the housing society into one with renewable energy and rainwater catches, and as a result, he managed to help all the residents and himself, thousands in savings.
In fact, he was “appalled” to see just how much money fellow residents were paying to have water delivered to their building, which they would get from large tanker trucks when needed. However, Chandra refused to give in to such hefty prices just to get water, so he decided to do something about it instead.
Aside from the delivered truck water being incredibly expensive, it was “not ever clean,” shared Chandra. So the fact that all the residents were willing to pay for such an extravagance for something not even worth it made no sense to the senior gentleman. Especially since the city of Mumbai is along the path of all the monsoon rains that India gets hit with every year.
Rather, he convinced the other members of his housing society to invest in a rainwater harvesting facility, a windmill, solar panels, and a composting pit so that they could transform their regular apartment block into a new, hip and eco-friendly hub of “green civic-mindedness.”
When Chandra pitched his ideas to the other residents, he told them that not only would the lower cost of water benefit them, but their investment would be returned to them in a few years, all thanks to their savings in both water and electricity costs. Incredibly, by 2012, their community was seriously thriving and even earning their investments back, all thanks to the almost 200,000 liters (2 Lakh) of water they managed to gather in their rainwater system during the monsoon season in the country.
In an interview with The Better India, Chandra said, “We have stopped purchasing tank water, and can even fulfil the water needs of our neighboring buildings.”
In addition, Chandra decided that he didn’t just want to tackle their high water bills, but he wanted to also do something when it came to their massive electricity costs that tend to come during the rainy season. By installing solar panels and a wind turbine, Chandra also managed to provide the building with at least 50% of its electricity requirements from nature as well.
Furthermore, they even compost food scraps on site to use as fertilizer for the landscaping and rooftop garden in the building.
With all the hoopla on climate change and the activism that goes along with it, so many people are more focused on changing the world than actually doing something about their very own surroundings. However, when it comes to Chandra, he knew exactly what he needed to do to fix his own problems. If only there was a Chandra in every homeowner’s association, there may actually be more movement in the fight for climate change and renewable energy than what we see right now.
See more about Navin Chandra in the video below.
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