Preserve, Value and Reuse water
Every year we celebrate World Water Day on March 22 to spread awareness about the Water. Theme for this year is ‘Valuing Water , from Environment, Social and Culturally.’
Colonel (Retd) Shashikant Dalvi, a Pune based activist shares with us on how we can preserve water.
Friends water is a very important natural resource for very survival of all beings on our planet. Our water, food, health, even economic security depends on availability of water.
Despite Earth being Aqueous Planet only 1% is a fresh water. Rising population and it’s rising needs is putting pressure on this precious natural resource. We all must respect this Elixer of Life.
As citizens we can practice following to conserve water :
- Around 40% of water is lost in transportation due to leaking pipes. Drop by drop loss amounts to loss of 18,000 liters of water annually.
- Absence ofWater conservation policy . Pune has around 50 lakh vehicles. 2 litres of water per day for cleaning amounts to loss of 1 crore litres of precious water or around 80,000 citizens daily water supply is lost.
- Rain water harvesting, Rain water is a primary source of sustainable water supply. In Pune rainwater potential is around 75,000 on rooftop catchment area of 1000sq ft. Presently it is wasted. Every citizen must make use of this precious gift from mother nature.
- Our present attitude towards water is USE AND DISCARD. We need to change this to COLLECT EVERY DROP OF RAINWATER, USE IT TO RECHARGE UNDERGROUND WATER TABLE, RECYCLE GREY WATER, REUSE IT FOR FLUSHING, GARDENING, VEHICLES CLEANING. WATER CONSERVATION, DISCARD ONLY TOILET WATER.
- Reuse of Grey Water. Every day every one generates 65 litres of grey water. This should be easily recycled and reused.
Availability of from 1971 to 2014 is reduced by 71% per capita annually. By 2025 our water demand will be double the present supply.
As per NITI AAYOG around 66 crore Indians don’t have access to safe drinking water as well as access to safe sanitation and hygiene facilities.Every day close to 2000 people die due to diarrhoea because of contaminated water. Around 70% of surface water is contaminated.
Since independence India’s population is increased by around 100 crores.
Every one requires water for their needs, like food, health, economic.
About Col (Retd) Shashikant Dalvi Colonel (retd) Shashikant Dalvi served with the Indian Army from 1969 to 2002. As a young officer, he led troops in enemy territory during the 1971 war to liberate Bangladesh.
He was also involved in cutting edge technological achievements to enable defence machinery to operate at sub-zero temperatures in high altitudes.
Post retirement, he implemented Pune city’s first roof-top rain water harvesting project in 2003 in his housing society. This resulted in a ‘Tanker Water’ free society, which saved costs AND improved the water table in Viman Nagar. After that, he started spreading awareness on water conservation, through his organisation, PARJANYA. He successfully helped more than600 different organisations like Housing Societies, Schools, Colleges, Hospitals, Industry etc to improve the falling ground-water table in their locations and to overcome water shortages.
Col (retd) Dalvi has spread awareness through seminars, lectures and workshops in schools, colleges, community centres, corporate events and industry. He is a regular participant on shows in TV and Radio.
