Rashtrapati Bhavan is perhaps the best address in the country, the former viceregal palace or Governor's House was a metaphor for the Raj robust, regal and majestic. However, successive ``local'' residents have spared no efforts to infuse a sense of sagacity, austerity and self-restraint into the monolithic structure. But to no avail. If it took Rs 1.4 crore to build this symbol of might in 1931,it takes as much and a little more a month to maintain it today.

Over the years, there have been outbreaks of indignation at this monument of colossal waste by sections of the political class, especially the austerity-driven Gandhians and the flag-waving socialists. In fact, in 1977, when the Janata Party came to power in the name of power to the people, its Prime Minister, the late Morarji Desai, received a proposal from many of his colleagues to build ministerial houses within the estate for the occupants of the sprawling bungalows of Lutyen's Delhi and put their earlier homes to better use. The proposal was roundly rejected.

While several presidents have made valiant efforts to cut the flab, it is under the present incumbent, K.R. Narayanan, that the Rashtrapati Bhavan is going eco-savvy for the first time, in a measure to economise. The first eco-friendly gesture was to harness rain water within the premises in a desperate bid to save on water costs. Says an aide helpfully, ``The President was presentat a seminar six months ago on rain water harvesting as chief guest and he returned that evening a very impressed man.''

Narayanan did not waste time, he asked his staff to immediately contact the ministry of Water Resources and asked them to send in a proposal for how to utilise the rain water as an alternative to buying water.

Clearly the President realised that rain water harvesting had other advantages apart from cost-saving benefits. He was told that harvesting also enhanced the sustainable yield of existing ground water structures like wells, tube wells, and so on. What's more, it arrested the further decline in ground water levels in and around the estate a problem that is common to other parts of Delhi too. Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dixit has even claimed that going by present rate of decline of the water table in the city, Delhi would be a desert by 2035.

Proper water harvesting procedures are also believed to improve the quality of ground water through dilution, besides restoring suppliesfrom aquifers depleted due to excessive ground water withdrawal.

Apart from locating the areas where the ground water level had become depleted, the Central Ground Water Board set about building the basic infrastructure for water harvesting within the sprawling estate, which included routine civil works like drilling, building drains and collection centres -- all for a modest sum of Rs 12 lakh.

The experiment, which was set off this monsoon season, has been declared successful. According to the President's aide, the project has already shown a visible rise in the ground water level table and it will only improve in the years to come.

``This is just the beginning and the future looks very promising,'' he adds. ``Also, an old well in the estate, which has been dry in the last several decades, has remarkably shown some water at the bottom,'' he says proudly. This increase in the ground water table will go a long way in helping to cope with the vast requirement of water for the presidential estate.

Therequired water capacity for the house on Raisina Hill is staggering the estate which spreads over 1.30 square km is a township within itself apart from the 340 rooms in the main building, there are 4,000 residents living here at any given time. It has a school, post office, bank for the staff and family and tennis courts, swimming pool, ornamental canals, garden pools and fountains, theatre, club for the First Family and their guests; apart from acres of rolling gardens and forests. According to available reports, the water required to service the entire estate is 2,000 cubic metres per day. While the municipality supplies two-thirds of both unfiltered and filtered water, ground water is pumped out to make up for the shortfall. In the last one decade, the decline in the water level has gone down by 2 to 7 metres.

Another eco-friendly measure taken by President Narayanan is the proposal to heat the pool with solar energy. The vast Olympic-size, outdoor pool near the guest wing has been quite a favouritewith visiting dignitaries but to their dismay, despite the warm sun in winter, the water was always freezing cold. It was this that led to the decision to heat the pool. In the drive to instal eco-friendly alternate systems undertaken by the President, solar heating was chosen because of the obvious long-term cost advantages. The total installation cost, including solar panelling, civil works, heat exchangers and electrical back-up systems, comes to about Rs 80 lakh.

``Additionally, when the pool will not require any heating, the installed system of solar panels will augment the hot water supply systems in Rashtrapati Bhavan like in kitchens, bathrooms, and so on,'' says a presidential aide. The costs, he says, will be met by the existing budget of Rashtrapati Bhavan, and the the proposal has been sent for approval to the ministry of Urban Affairs and also to the department of Urban Development.

The First Lady. Usha Narayanan, has also contributed to the environment-friendly atmosphere that has suddenlyenveloped President House. She has brought exotic plants from almost every corner of the country she has visited and planted them in the famed Mughal Garden that is the centrepiece of Rashtrapati Bhavan, thus creating a botanical oasis for tree lovers.

More importantly, she has instructed gardeners to develop social forestry by planting trees that benefit people who live on the estate. ``These are essentially trees that provide firewood, rather than fruit-bearing or flowering trees,'' says the aide. ``The First Lady did this after she noticed that a vast number of trees were being cut at the branches for firewood by the staff who live on the estate.'' So far, around 500 fast-growing trees like the acacia, poplar, mulberry and the like have been planted.

The estate, which rolls into the Ridge -- Delhi's only surviving forest cover which is part of the Aravallis -- is an environmental showcase but it would still require mammoth effort and prudent measures to keep the house running in a relatively economicaland efficient way.