In this chapter the phenomena of dew condensation is discussed. It is followed by discussion of extraction of moisture from air by passive condensers. Ancient and more recent attempts to build dew condensers are discussed. Basic properties of an efficient passive dew condenser are derived using a simple mathematical model. Construction and trial of condensers made of three different materials is presented.

Harvest of Rain and Fog

A rain harvest system needs only to intercept rainwater and channel it down to storage. Rain harvest technology is well known and necessary gear is widely available. The techniques to harvest fog are also now well established. There are reports of successful systems of fog harvest in several countries of South America. Essentially large nets of polypropylene are hung across the path of the moving clouds of fog near the ground. The water gets collected on the mesh and channeled to storage through appropriate size conduits. The detailed description of the harvest technique and systems are given in Appendix - 2.

Harvest of Dew

Dew harvesting differs from rain and fog harvesting. A dew harvest system must first make water by condensing the vapors contained in the air and then channel it down. Examples of this phenomenon can be easily seen in daily life. When a bottle of cold water is taken out of the fridge and placed on the dining table a thin film of condensate (water) is formed on its outer surface (Figure 3.1).

I grew-up seeing dewfall, fog and frost in my village in UP. Dewladen blades of grass, glass panes and assorted other objects with dew water on the surface were a common sight on winter mornings. It felt good walking barefoot on grass, leaving footprints or a swath that would remain visible for a few moments. Fog was also often present in the morning. Frost occurred less often. When it did, it would cause some anxiety among our neighbours, many of whom were farmers.

I encountered dew as a subject several years later, as an undergraduate at Allahabad Agricultural Institute, in a hydrology course. The instructor mentioned dew as one of three forms of precipitation, rainfall and snow being the other two. But he stated that snow was not all that important in India and dew even less so. So the rest of that course, and the others that I went through later, dealt only with the rainfall. I continued to think of dewfall as phenomena of only the winter season, and something of no practical significance. This has now changed. Encounter with dewfall in the arid, coastal areas of Kutch has shown that it is a phenomenon that occurs in summer months as well. And the quantity of water one can collect is not negligible.

We had started a research project in greenhouse cultivation in a village, Kothara, in this district near the Arabian Sea coast.

It is our extreme pleasure to write the preface for this remarkable book. This book summarizes the successful efforts of our colleague and friend, Prof. Girja Sharan, representative member for India of OPUR International Organization for Dew Utilization, to harvest dew water in order to provide supplementary potable water to the population of the Kutch area.

Harvesting dew in such a way that humans can access water in arid and semi-arid regions has been for long a dream and many legends are attached to this idea. A number of documented attempts have been tried in the last century – Friedrich Zibold in Crimea (Ukraine), Achille Knapen and Léon Chaptal in France – but the dew water yields were found insignificant. Indeed, massive dew condensers were used which could not cool enough at night to reach the dew point temperature.

Based on a different approach promoted by OPUR – cooling of light foils by radiative losses at night – the dew water yield has been demonstrated to be large enough to be a useful supplement to populations living in an arid and semi-arid environment. This is all the more useful when dew water can be harvested at the very place where people are living, for instance on the roof of the habitations.

This book explains the exemplary procedure that Prof. Sharan followed: study of the dew resource of the site, chemical analysis of dew water to verify potability, test of dew harvesting materials, construction of small and pilot-sized dew condensers, and ultimately the construction of a large dew production plant.

Dew is often much smaller in quantity that the rainfall. In humid areas its contribution to moisture balance in the area is usually ignored. In arid areas and desert environment however it is more important than is generally recognized. In this chapter we give some evidence of its significance from investigations carried out at many locations overseas. It is followed by presentation of data of dewfall measurements in India and in the coastal arid region of Kutch in Gujarat. Quality of dew water from Kutch is examined. Finally, it is argued that given the good quality of water, appreciable quantity and high frequency of occurrence in arid coastal Kutch, dew harvest systems should be developed for the use of people in the region.

Dew, Fog and Frost

Dew is atmospheric water vapour condensing on a surface that has been cooled by radiative cooling at night. Dew deposit can be seen on the windshield of cars parked in the open on winter nights. In the course of the night, glass looses heat by radiative exchange more rapidly than the surrounding air. If it cools down to the dew-point temperature of the air, condensation will occur on its surface. That is dew.

Fog is closely related. It occurs when the air near the ground is saturated and condensation occurs (not on cold surface) but on tiny particles suspended in the air. It is difficult to see through fog because of those tiny particles of water suspended in the air, which reduce visibility.

Dew Harvest

The following is an abridged version of a very informative and comprehensive article;

Air Wells

Methods of Recovery of Atmospheric Humidity

By Robert A. Nelson

The article describes a variety of methods to recover atmospheric humidity including the mechanical, electro-magnetic etc. Only a part of the article has been reproduced below.

It was downloaded from OPUR website www.opur.u-bordeaux.fr and is being reproduced with permission from D. Beysens of OPUR.

Air Wells

The collection of atmospheric humidity is an ancient technology that has been rediscovered in modern times. In 1900, while he was engaged in clearing forests in Crimea (Ukraine), Russian engineer Friedrich Zibold discovered 13 large conical tumuli of stones, each about 10,000 feet square and 30-40 feet tall, on hilltops, near the site of the ancient Greek city of Feodosia. Because there were numerous remains of 3-inch diameter terracotta pipes about the piles, leading to wells and fountains in the city, Zibold concluded (albeit allegedly incorrectly, according to Beysens, et al.) that the stacks of stone were condensers that supplied Feodosia with water. Zibold calculated that each “air well” produced more than 500 gallons daily, up to 1000 gallons under optimal conditions.

To verify his hypothesis, he first wrote a book entitled “Underground Dew and New Theory on the Ground Origins of Spring Water” (1906), and then constructed a stone-pile condenser at an altitude of 288 meters on Mt. Tepe-Oba near Feodosia.

Bringing innovative strategies to the attention of policymakers and the general public is part of CEE's efforts towards better environmentally sound decision making. The E&D book series highlights alternative viewpoints, development approaches and innovative technologies backed by analysis and information from development theorists and practitioners. The booklets are geared to the needs of practitioners. They bridge the gap between new ideas and theories and field trials.

This booklet deals with dew harvesting as a feasible solution to chronic water scarcity in arid areas near the coastline. Prof. Girja Sharan who developed this technique while in the field shares this innovative idea through this booklet. The booklet substantiates the methodology of dew harvesting based on a case study from the Kothara village in the Kutch region, where this methodology has been implemented.

The booklet provides insights into the simple and people friendly technology of dew harvesting. The author describes the methodology involved in the measurement of dewfall throughout India, especially in the coastal regions. Practical models implemented in the Kutch region have been extensively documented in this monogram. The author recommends that dew harvesting be part of the curriculum at colleges and urges hydrologists and engineers to seriously consider its utility as an innovative technology.

With CEE's core commitment to education for sustainable development at all levels of learning, we expect that this booklet will serve as a catalyst in the replication and propagation of viable models of sustainable development.

In different areas of the Telangana region, immediately after the Indian army's ‘police action’, there were expectations that a new democratic set-up would be ushered, in place of the old Nizam-Razakar regime, and that it would safeguard the gains of the people and assure them a better life. Many squad members and organisers laid down thier arms, carried away by the general enthusiasm. But as the landlords returned, and the Union Government intensified its military and police repression in all areas, squads were reorganised, arms taken up and defensive actions against the landlords and informers and police were begun.

But in the Nallamala region, the area leadership persisted for the whole year of 1949 with its line of no armed struggle, they laid down the plan of action which said: (i) dissolve the guerrilla squads and dump the arms; (ii) no action against the landlords and their agents until a powerful network of secret Party cells was built which on their own could take action against these elements; (iii) no action against the police and military as it would invite tremendous repression and destroy whatever organisation we might have been able to set up; (iv) people themselves to defend the land and cattle distributed earlier and not expect guerrilla squads to come and attack the enemy; and (v) dissolve the village people's councils.

This committee argued that its line of partial economic struggles and secret Party organisation was the only correct line till the situation in large parts of India developed anew.

Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation Ltd. (GCMMF) is the state level Federation of twelve District Milk Unions in Gujarat, which in 2001–02 had 10852 Dairy Cooperative Societies at the village level with 22.23 lakhs milk producers as members, spread over the twelve districts. The pioneering efforts at organising dairy cooperatives in the country on the Anand pattern, which began in Kaira district in Gujarat in 1946 with two village dairy cooperatives and fewer than two hundred milk producers as members, have grown to this scale in the state. GCMMF markets its products under the brand name ‘Amul’. The White Revolution in the country was ushered in by the success of Amul. India is the largest milk producer in the world today with over 11 million farmers organised into dairy cooperatives. This movement has received a lot of national and international recognition as well as several awards for its pioneering work.

GCMMF was formed in 1973 by federating six District Milk Unions to strengthen the marketing base of the cooperative dairy industry in the state. It has grown to twelve members over the years. The turnover of GCMMF Ltd. in 2001–02 was Rs. 2336 crores. It is the largest food products marketing organisation in the country and also the largest exporter of dairy products. Nine of the twelve member District Milk Unions of GCMMF have ISO 9002 certification, one has ISO 9001 certification, three have ISO 14001 certification, and ten have HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point) certification.

One District Union, The Kaira District Cooperative Milk Producers Union Ltd., better known as Amul Dairy, has been included in the study alongwith GCMMF.

Having discussed process-orientation as the first strand in empowering society, we now move to the second strand in our conceptualisation of empowerment – the bases of power. Power with its varied nuances is an inherent part of empowerment. It is therefore important to understand the meaning and sources of power as well as the responsible use of power as an integral part of the empowerment process. The interventions aimed at empowerment have to be clear about what kind of power is being sought and how that power is to be used by the people who are empowered. The approaches to power and the various bases of power postulated by scholars is first described. This would lay down the spectrum of choice for empowerment by the three types of organisational systems.

Approaches to Power

Max Weber (1968) was perhaps the first one to attempt to define power. According to him, ‘power is the probability that one actor within a social relationship will be in a position to carry out his own will despite resistance, regardless of the basis on which this probability rests’. Using this as the basic parameter for his conceptualisation, Milan Zafirovski (2001) has explained the notion of power as ‘the potential (stochastic) or actual (de facto) individual and group capability, based on unequal positions in economy and society, i.e. in the economic system or social structure, to impose definite ideas, values, wishes, or interests on other individuals or groups, by overcoming the resistance of these individuals and groups’. Others have echoed the same ideas somewhat differently.

From the narrative so far, we see how the people of Telangana, suffering from age-old, dark, feudal oppression, from forced labour and illegal exactions, from a cruel and hated feudal rule, their language and culture suppressed, groaning under a cruel, corrupt and autocratic rule, groped their way slowly towards a new life. They started out for some elementary relief in their miserable life; no vetti, no illegal exactions, no land evictions, no torturing and dishonouring; for elementary civil liberties; for education and culture and for responsible self-government. It developed under the leadership of the Communist Party and the Andhra Mahasabha into a powerful armed people's struggle for land and liberation, against feudal exploitation and against the hated Nizam's rule. It spread to about 3,000 villages, to nearly one-third of the Telangana area where gram raj (village panch–people's self-government) fighting committees were established. The Nizam's officials, the hated landlords, had to quit the villages, leaving the panch committees to carry on people's administration. Not only vetti, illegal exactions, land evictions, usurious loans, torturing and dishonouring by corrupt officials and village oppressors were put an end to, waste lands and surplus lands of the landlords, to the extent of a million acres, along with the necessary cattle and agricultural implements were distributed to the rural poor; fair wages for agricultural labourers were enforced and grain produced by this toil was distributed along them. People used to say that for the first time in their lives, they could have two full meals a day.

The struggle conducted inside the jails during the period of the Telangana struggle was indeed historic and was a part and parcel of the struggle outside. If only 12,000 were arrested during the struggle against the Nizam, as many as 50,000 were arrested during the military regime of the Union Government.

The space in sub-jails, district jails and central jails was not enough, despite the fact that the jails were over-crowded to six times their capacity. For instance, as many as 900 prisoners were kept in the Nalgonda jail, the capacity of which was not more than 100. So in places like Khammam, they put up electrified barbed wire fences in open places and kept thousands of Communists and other Telangana fighters thus enclosed. Special regiments were kept in charge of the jail establishment, which the authorities themselves nicknamed as the ‘Khammam Cage’.

They were not ordinary jails; people were herded into them like cattle and sheep and men did not get facilities which even cattle got from their owners. They were not mere jails; they were concentration and torture camps.

The jail manuals of the feudal regime had no place for political prisoners. The military regime was much worse in that regard. There was no difference between those who were brought to jail and not yet convicted and those who were convicted. As such, prisoners had to fight for their honour and dignity as politicals.

Khammam Concentration Camp

After filling the ordinary jails beyond their capacity, they herded into the “Khammam Cage” about 2,000 prisoners. They put up tents which did not give protection either from the sun or from rain. The prisoners were victims of both.

Comrade Kondalreddi: Comrade Kondalreddi and Ravula Veerayya, while hiding in a big cave in a big stone hillock, were surrounded by militarymen in Nimmakallu, near Patasuryapet. They stationed themselves deeper into the cave, and knowing that in any case, they would fall into the hands of the enemy, sold their lives dearly, by killing as many of the military men as possible, before they themselves died. As two soldiers peeped into the cave, they were instantly killed with rifle and sten-gun firing. This frightened the soldiers. Fire spat from inside the cave whenever any soldier was found anywhere near the opening of the cave. The whole contingent of soldiers fired into the cave and got it back. Some more soldiers were killed. Only when the return fire had stopped did they gather enough courage to go inside the cave. There they found the two dead bodies, which they dragged out, along with a sten-gun and a rifle. Not a single round of ammunition was left. Even the enemy was amazed at the heroism of these two comrades.

Comrade Kondalreddi, who came from a middle peasant family of Isthalapuram village (Suryapet taluka), joined the Congress in 1947, during the merger movement. But he soon got disillusioned with the methods of Congressmen and within months, joined the Communist Party. He was successful in bringing along with him into the Communist Party, two Congress squads and a number of other people. He participated in many an action of the guerrilla squads, and during the struggle against the Nizam, was one of those who encircled the Errapadu and Atmakur police camps.

Methodology

These case studies relate to the following five organisations selected out of a list of the corporate businesses in Gujarat which met our criteria for a purposive sample as detailed in Chapter 1, and which agreed to participate in the study. The field work for developing these case studies was carried out between July 2001 and June 2002.

• Excel Industries Ltd.

• Gujarat Ambuja Cements Ltd.

• Tata Chemicals Ltd.

• Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation Ltd. (GCMMF Ltd.)

• Indian Farmers Fertiliser Cooperative Ltd. (IFFCO Ltd.)

These business organisations have plants and facilities in several states of the country. Visits were made to the offices and plant facilities of these organisations at the sites indicated below:

• Excel Industries Ltd. in Mumbai, and Bhujodi and Mandvi, Kutch district

• Gujarat Ambuja Cements Ltd. in Kodinar, Junagadh district

• Tata Chemicals Ltd. in Mithapur, Jamnagar district

• GCMMF Ltd. in Anand, Kheda district

• IFFCO Ltd. in Kalol, Gandhinagar district.

The community development initiatives of Gujarat Ambuja Cements Ltd., Tata Chemicals Ltd., and IFFCO Ltd. are coordinated from the same premises as the plant facilities. The special community development interventions of GCMMF Ltd. are coordinated from premises different from their plant and offices in Anand. The head office of Excel Industries is in Mumbai, but their focused community development initiatives are coordinated from Bhujodi and Mandvi in Kutch.

Meetings and discussions were held with key persons in the business operations as well as in the separate community development organisations set up by the above listed enterprises. People interviewed were asked to define empowerment from their own life and work experiences.

The evolution of a mature democracy can be directly related to the level of empowerment experienced by its citizens and institutions. To understand this correlation, it is necessary to develop clarity about the process of empowerment in any given society. However, the term ‘empowerment’ is used widely in a variety of contexts with an equally wide range of meanings. The growing emphasis on participative systems of governance and management at all levels of organisational functioning in society is an important factor that has contributed to the wide use of the term ‘empowerment’ today. The world of business, the field of social development, the sphere of government and legislation are some of the more prominent contexts where this term has gained currency. Independently, these contexts address different segments of society in their thrust of empowerment and strive to achieve different objectives in their respective fields of action. The following randomly selected sample of available definitions, pertaining to different contexts, provide a fair idea of the varied connotations of the term.

Business Organisations

In the business context, empowerment is generally visualised as the process which generates and continually sustains a working environment that provides for individual creativity to express itself to the maximum possible extent. In the words of D. C. Kinlaw (1995), it is ‘the process of achieving continuous improvement in an organisation's performance by developing and extending the competent influence of individuals and teams over the areas and functions which affect their performance and that of the total organisation’.

The raison d'etre of business is its economic contract with society – to create wealth through the production of goods and services which are consumed by the people. Conventionally, the success of business has been viewed in terms of profits it generates i.e. a purely financial, single bottomline measure. This has, however, changed over the years to view the success of business from several other measures besides profit. Profits are necessary and inevitable for the success of business but the way the profits are generated is equally important. The social, environmental, ethical, informational means and methods employed to generate profits have a bearing on the responsible and accountable behaviour of business. Thus, a concept of multiple bottomlines has evolved from these concerns to measure the success of business as multipurpose organisations set to achieve multiple objectives.

The Stakeholders Focus

Accompanying this change is the shift from viewing business as shareholder focused organisations to stakeholder focused organisations. The various stakeholders that a business is held accountable to include owners, customers, employees, environment, regulatory authorities, community, and society, at large. Business has to maintain a careful 30 Empowering Society balance between the demands and pressures of these various stakeholders, which can sometimes be conflicting in nature.

Peter Pruzan (2001) succintly identifies the distinctive features of these two views of organisation which he calls ‘shareholder value perspective’ and ‘stakeholder value perspective’: