Coke makes Oval Maidan green again

Mumbai's famous Oval Maidan has found an unlikely rescuer. This 22-acre land opposite to the Bombay HC is green because of the efforts of Coca-Cola India.

The FMCG major has been working for the past eight months at the Oval to make sure that the rain water that usually runs into the sea is put to good use in that area. The result: green patches in that part of the city will not face any water shortage in the future.

Coca-Cola, in response to a Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM) initiative, has activated an old aquifer under the Oval Maidan. By using several catchment systems, the rain harvesting system has created an underground water system, which is large enough to produce 3.10 crore litres of water.

Developed at an investment of Rs 10 lakh, the project has already been operational since last November, and will be able to irrigate the 22-acre green cover of the Oval, besides providing other grounds in the area "" Azad and Cooperage "" with water.

The Coke initiative has made it possible for the Oval Maidan Trust to stop using the 4.11 lakh litres of water, which it had been getting from the city's civic body. At present, there are eight bore wells and four ring wells at the Oval. Each ring well has the capacity to produce between 5,000 litres and 10,000 litres of water an hour after the monsoon sets in.

This water will be circulated back to the maidans to maintain their greenery.

The metro requires around 320 crore litres of water a day, with an average of 135 litres per person a day. Spread over an area of 437 sq km, the city gets an average rainfall of 2,000 mm in a year, which makes up for 87,400 crore litres of rain water. Unfortunately, barely a million litres of rain water is harvested in the city currently.