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Dude,

You keep drilling borewells and it will dry and you don't have learnt from it yet. What is the guarantee that the new bore will also run dry. Water beneath the earth is not unlimited that you bore and water magically appears. With your 7 acres of land, you can store water and recharge ground water during rains. Learn about rain water harvesting and ground water recharge now so that in a couple of years you will have water in all of your borewells because it will only get worse if you dont.

Anand

Anand,

Would you suggest any rain harvesting method ???

check out some of the web sites that provide a lot of information in this regard.

http://www.rainwaterclub.org/who.htm
http://www.bwssb.org/rainwater_harvesting.html

The selection of the method depends on many things - your budget, the availability of space, etc.

THe basic approach - provide a pit in the ground, and trap all the runoff from your roof and cemented area surrounding your house and direct it into the pit. The water in the pit will gradually enter the under ground reserves. (this is only a highlevel explanation).

A third basic one is - if you already have a borewell, just direct the water into the borewell (of course with some filtration to prevent debris from entering the well).

Then there is the other simple method - have one to a few large drums, direct runoff into these drums (the top is equipped with some filtration method). you can then use the water from these drums.

The more elaborate approach is to build underground tanks, equip them with filters and collect water in these pits. Use a sump pump to pump the water to desired locations.

Bangalore BWSSB had setup some demo locations in Jayanagar, perhaps they might have literature to provide users like us.

good luck. I am so happy that they have made this and solar water heating mandatory. If the cost of photo-voltaic comes down, and they mandate solar electricity harvesting as well, Bengaluru and India can come a long way in terms of energy savings as well.

I got the borewell drilled in my site in BTM layout two days back and here is my experience.

- I got the water source identified by a water diviner(coconut method) as well as a geologist. Both indicated drilling points almost at the same location( 1-2 feet distance). Both of them indicated the depth at which the water source will be available as well as the expected yield. Coconut guy indicated a depth of 450-650 feet with a single source of water whereas Geologist indicated a depth of 650-850 feet with 4 different water sources along the way (285, 485, 650 and 850). Geologist even indicated how long the MS pipes need to be provisioned. But I did not see them using any device or formula to arrive at these data. Later the driller mentioned to be that the coconut guy and the geologist just use the past data from that locality to specify almost all of these information and whether we get water is or not is indeed in the divine's hand!!!.

- The water diviner referred a borewell guy (Surekha borewells) and he has also brought the quotation from that guy. Based on the comparison of rates of Kannan borewells, Friends and Surekha, I decided to go with Surekha borewells and fixed the time to start the drilling as 7AM on a Friday.

- The borewell guy did show up at 6AM itself, but the drilling started only at 10AM as they took long time to setup the equipments. There was lot of trouble from a neighbor who wanted his entire building to be protected from any dirt(which I had done partially thanks to some threads from this forum and could not do 100% as his building is 5 storey building!). He started abusing and wanted us to stop the drilling. I tried telling him that I will get his walls repainted or pay the money if he wants to do himself, but he was not relenting. Since it was a helpless situation, I sought the local corporator's help as I had known him and he could fix my neighbor by highlighting his building violations!!!

- The drilling itself was very slow due to soil pattern and also some hiccups of the borewell guy. By end of day1 at 9:30 PM after almost 8 hours of drilling, they had reached only 200 feet and have completed the erection of PVC pipe(55 feet) and MS pipe(170 feet). And we had to stop the drilling to avoid further trouble from neighbors. There was also a water source around 160 feet with 1/4 inch yield along the way.

- On day 2, we started the drilling at 7AM and there was hue and cry from the neighbors that we should start only at 9AM to help people who are sleeping still!. But I told them that BBMP has allowed me to start from 6AM , but have helped them to sleep for an extra hour . After much discussion, they let me continue the drilling!!!.

- From 170 feet onwards, it was a single rock with white dust covering the entire area till reaching 800 feet depth. It was very depressing and the drilling itself went like watching a suspense thriller movie . Around 810 feet depth, the white dust stopped and there was small quantity of water and borewell guys told me that the water yield at that point is 1.25 inch. I have no clue how he arrived at this number. Continued the drilling till 950 feet and stopped at 10.15 PM.

- In the end, they flushed the well 2-3 times to remove the sludge and welded a cap on top of the MS pipe and covered the borewell with a gunny sack and completed their dismantling by 11.30 PM on 2nd day. So they took almost 2 full days to drill 950 feet. And the total water yield is 1.5 inch

- The 3rd day was spent in cleaning the road , storm water drain as they accumulated lot of sludge and also cleaning the neighbor's building with a workforce of 6 people!

- The final settlement with the borewell guy was based on the following rates.

6.5 inch bore used

0-250 feet -> Rs 62
250-350 -> Rs 72
350-450 -> Rs 82
450 - 550 -> 92
550 - 650 -> 107 (Rs 15 increase)
650 - 750 -> 122
750 - 850 -> 137
850 - 950-> 157( Rs 20 increase)
950 - 860-> 177

MS Pipe(7inch dia , 2.5 mm thickness, 6Kg per cmsq strength) -> Rs 320 per feet
PVC pipe(10 inch dia) -> Rs 300 per feet
He also charged for welding , borewell cap as well as collars and some miscellaneous charges amounting to around Rs 2500

If I have to summarize, it was an expensive as well as a painful effort to drill this borewell . I am yet to install the pump and will do after couple of months and the borewell guy told me that that is going to cost high as the depth is 950 feet. In spite of all the troubles, I was relieved as there was a decent water yield

Regards,
Selva

Thanks for sharing your experience. It helps.

Hi guys,

What would be the ideal cost of borewell on a vacant plot? I have a 30x40 plot in HBR layout and opting to construct a G/F small 5 square house with borewell.

Plz advise the cost of borewell and if any company in view for contacts with reasonable charges.

Thx.

Selva, how much did you spend in total for the borewell?

Hi guys,
Do I need to take permission from BBMP for the borewell? What is the normal procedure that needs to be followed? If you can provide some dos and donts during the borwell digging, it would be great.

Hi,
I was on travel and hence did not check this forum for almost a month and hence the delayed response.

Parkom-> It cost 1.75 lakhs for borewell. I might have to spend around another 1-1.25 lakhs for pipes, cable and motor to get the water from the borewell.

pyaretaj -> Total cost depends on the depth you need to drill. You can calculate for the depth you need using the details I have shared.

Yogi-> I heard that there is no approval needed from BBMP. I may be wrong.. But I was not troubled by any BBMP guys..
The main things to consider if you plan to go for a borewell are
- Identify the borewell point using more than one mechanisms you trust(coconut, geologist,etc).
- Ensure that if there are buildings near drilling point, you cover them with sheets to 3-4 floors as at the initial stage the borewell guys pump lot of water
into the bore and drill with high pressure leading to water splashing very high inspite of all their efforts. And you can be sure the neighbor will go mad...
- Be prepared to handle unfriendly neighbors
- Plan to have the borewell drilling 1 or 2 days based on the depth needed and start the borewell at or after 7AM and stop the operation 10PM so as not to
invite trouble from neighbors
- Take a quote from 2-3 borewell guys and negotiate with them. Be specific on thickness of MS pipes during price fixing as well as installation as they try to
save some money by installing lesser thickness.
- Ensure that you plan for some labours to clean the mess on road and neighboring buildings after completing the borewell.
- Also take the borewell guy to the site few days in advance and understand any infrastructure he needs. Like electricity, water, site levelling to
enable the borewell truck to park in the right alighnment, etc
- Also enquire the nearby areas for the borewell depths to get a feel of how much depth you should go before giving up
- Just be calm throughout drilling as there is no point in worrying that the water is still not there !

Good luck!

Recently we dug borewell in our site. We hired Vinayaka borewells, Kathrigupe. Here are my experience.
1. Overall good experience.
2. Owner had confirmed that lorry will be reaching my site by 12 midnight, on a day before scheduled date and asked me to reach the site by 5AM
3. A person called me at 1.30AM and told that they reached the site and asked me to come there by 4.30 AM
4. At 4.35AM sharp he called me again to confirm if I am going there
5. I reached at 5.30 AM and took them to site as they were a bit away due to parking issues
6. Immidietly after reaching they started arrangements and it took a while
7. They had tea and started at 7.30 AM
8. Hit rock at 76 ft at around 8.45 AM
9. After that they inserted the casing (2.5mm metal) after welding
10. They had lunch there and started drill again at 11.30 AM
11. Continued the drilling till 4.30PM when we reached 400 ft.Continued till we reached 450ft which is sufficient and water was 1.5inch.
12. Though we did not hit gap, water was sufficient as per drilling people. But when owner reached site, he was insisting to go for more than 600ft.
13. Drilling people were friendly though half of them were talking in Tamil and remaining were talking in UP hindi

Charges(Rs):
0-250 ft=68/ft
251-350=78/ft
351-450=88/ft
451-550=98/ft

Casing:
MS(2.5mm)=340/ft
pVC=320/ft (used 6ft pvc for casing)

Drilling/collar/welding=Rs100 each

TPT/Driver bata=Rs.600

Overall it came a! around 72k !!

Thanks
Jay