August 10,2002 : Akash Ganga Chennai has completed the Rain Centre in Chennai, the first in India. It is located at 4 Third Trust Link Road in Mandavallipakkam, 1 city block west of the Santhome Main Road.

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Selvi Jayalalitha has graciously accepted our invitation to formally open the Rain Centre to the public on August 21, 2002. We have prepared a Virtual tour of the centre for people living outside Chennai. Click on the RWH House on the left panel, then once at the Rain Centre website, click on the VIRTUAL TOUR on the left panel again. Thanks for visiting the Rain Centre.

The monsoon rains during Oct-Nov-Dec 2001 were good. In fact they were 30% more than the average. It was followed by more rains in early January caused by a depression in the Bay of Bengal.

And, all the people who installed RWH in their houses and other sites are happy to enjoy plenty of good drinking water.

M.N.Mitra took me to a number of houses in Thiruvanmiyur area. In one house, the homeowner said "Why did I not install this 3 years ago ? I now have plenty of water in the sumps".

K.Venkataraman took me to Padmanabha Nagar where he is the Secretary of the homeowners association. Venkataraman said that almost 80% of the houses in this suburb have installed RWH and enjoying the results.

R.Ramani took me to Madras Fastners in the Ambattur area. This company has installed RWH and in 1 rainy season, they have paid off the investment.

Sekar Raghavan showed me the work he is doing at a Church in Adyar.

Benjamin Cherian held an opening ceremony after completing the desilting project at the Ayanavaram temple tank.

Prof Sathyanarayana allowed me to join his presentation on the importance of water to about 50 children in a high school in the T.Nagar area.

All these installations makes me 'bullish' on RWH success in Chennai. Yes, we have made a good beginning. We have a few success stories. Now, we need to repeat these success stories across all of Chennai.

On behalf of Akash Ganga Chennai (AGC), I am deeply indebted to the RWH practitioners referred to above (and others). Can we solve Chennai's water problem in the next 3 to 4 years. It looks possible.

To help in convincing many more thousands of residents of Chennai, AGC is presently in the process of creating a RWH Model House ("Rain Centre") that will incorporate working displays of relevant RWH systems, hold seminars for residents, builders, test water quality and other ideas.\

Please visit "Recent Activities" section for AGC activities last 2 months. Visit "Article Archives" for reprints of recent articles.

Our Yahoo Group - Akash Ganga Chennai - will continue to be the principal means of dialogue between our members. This newsletter will be prepared every few months summarizing the past events and future activities and will be sent to a wider audience. At this time, there are 130 members registered at the Yahoo site and we must reach a much larger audience who may not be Yahoo members.

We have prepared a sign (shown here) for home owners who have completed their RWH installations, to hang it on their front gates. It is hoped that others walking by will notice it and wish to learn about RWH.

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