Pics: Abhijith N Kolpe
Daijiworld Media Network - Mangaluru (ANK)
Mangaluru Jul 31: An awareness programme on rainwater harvesting was held at St Agnes PU College on Wednesday, July 31. The programme was organised by the PU College in collaboration with Udayavani daily.
Nirmithi Kendra managing director Rajendra Kalbhavi, who was also the resource person, said, "We have faced acute shortage of water before the monsoon season. The city almost went dry. Each individual uses nearly 250 liters of water per day. There is a need to curtail the excess use of water. Mangaluru is not far away from facing severe water crisis.”
“Do we need MCC to provide us with water? Cannot we take care of our water needs ourselves? Before infrastructure development took place in Mangaluru, the city never faced water crisis. There was sufficient water for paddy fields and the forest land. Today, we see that the water level has depleted and we hardly find water. We are now pushed into water crisis,” said Rajendra Kalbhavi.
He also said that a day might come, where people have to wait in long queues to collect water. “We had to fetch water for our basic needs in the past. Now the water comes to us in pipelines. Hence, we have taken water for granted. We cannot expect MCC to provide water for us every time. It is our duty to collect water through rainwater harvesting,” Kalbhavi stressed.
“Udayavani has done a tremendous job by taking up the campaign on rain water harvesting. However, we need people to execute it. We have visited 200 houses and organised over hundreds of lectures to create awareness on the importance of rain water harvesting. It is a need of the hour. There are different methods used in rain water harvesting. It’s up to people to pick a method, as there is no limit to innovative methods. Whenever it rains, if we keep a bucket outside, we can collect few liters of water for our daily use. We need not travel far away to collect water,” said Kalbhavi.
Michelle D’Souza compered the programme. Lynn Rebello welcomed the gathering and Arleen D’Souza proposed vote of thanks.
Udayavani marketing head Ramachandra Mijar, principal of St Agnes PU College Sr Norine, vice principal Sr Janet Sequeira, coordinator Tressy Menezes and staff representative Ashwin Kumar were present.
Since the last couple of months, Udayavani daily has been actively conducting a campaign on rain water harvesting.