Water education, need of the hour

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Water education, need of the hour

By Hiramalini Seshadri

Chennai: With extensive desertification of the Afro-Asian landmass, drinking

water has become the most precious commodity and water management and water

education have become vital issues in the 21st century. In this context, it is

a matter of pride that India has taken the lead in these two areas; for, the

past decade has witnessed exemplary water projects with national and

international ramifications thanks to Project Water launched by the Sri Sathya

Sai Service Organisation, a non-political, non-profit NGO. On November 22,

1994, in the presence of the then Prime Minister, P.V. Narasimha Rao, Sri

Sathya Sai Baba announced the intention to provide water for the worst-hit

areas of the arid Rayalaseema belt in Andhra Pradesh where people trudged for

miles to get a pot of drinking water.

The central trust of the organisation executed within a year aprojectthat

provided drinking water to 731 villages of Anantapur district at a cost of Rs.

300 crores. Today, the effort is cited as a perfect example of

NGO-government-private sector cooperation — between the Andhra Pradesh

government, Larsen and Toubro and the dedicated workforce of the central trust.

The project was delivered on time with exemplary fiscal management. The methods

are worthy of emulation, according to water experts. Sri Sathya Sai Baba had

laid down certain ground rules — no huge dams involving submergence of forests,

etc; the concepts of small is beautiful and making the most of pre-existing

infrastructure had to be followed.

For Anantapur, the Tungabhadra High Level Canal, the existing smaller irrigation

canals and the subsoil streams of dry riverbeds were tapped. The capacities of

pre-existing summer storage tanks were increased, infiltration wells, booster

stations, water treatment plants, overhead reservoirs and groundlevel

reservoirs were constructed and a whopping 2,500 km of pipes were laid; and

over a million villagers benefited. The exercise was next duplicated in Medak

and Mahbubnagar districts at a cost of Rs. 30 crores each and all projects have

since been handed back to the government for maintenance.

The icing on the cake however has been the Chennai water project. The five

million residents of Chennai today have water, thanks to the concreting of the

Kandaleru-Poondi canal which put an end to water loss through breaches in the

canal wall and the horrific evaporation loss due to sluggish flow and poor

depth-surface area index.

Global ramifications

The international ramifications of these successful projects merit mention.

Besides studying these projects as duplicatable models for the developing

world, water experts have been impressed by the Water Education project of the

Zambia-based TAISSE (The African Institute of Sathya Sai Education). The

U.N.-HABITAT's Project Water Education for African cities has drawn richly from

the experience of a model school at Ndola which pioneered a human values based

approach to Water Education. Victor Kanu, one-time Ambassador of Sierra Leone

to the U.K. who drew up the successful programme inspired by Sri Sathya Sai

Baba, was invited to the U.N.-HABITAT meeting of experts on water management

and education. Mr. Kanu's presentation was unanimously adopted as a possible

solution and he was next invited to present the paper at a parallel special

session of the U.N. General Assembly at New York on June 6, 2001.

Thereafter action began; Mr. Kanu chaired a sub-regional meeting of African

countries and, subsequently, TAISSE prepared a pedagogic guide, lesson plans

and supplementary materials on water education which are being integrated into

the school curriculum in Ethiopia, Kenya, Zambia, Ghana, Senegal and the Ivory

Coast. The latest development is that a water education project is being worked

out for East Asia after Mr. Kanu presented the African experience at a Water

Expert's conference at Manila. It is time that India took up water education on

a war-footing for in the long term only enlightened community participation can

ensure that the water management projects are safe guarded and maintained. The

Tamil Nadu government's project of desilting the `Ooranies' and so on, though

laudable, will stand the test of time only if water education goes hand in hand

with water management.

India's rich heritage

Traditionally, we have a rich heritage of water education, says the

Chennai-based agronomist and water expert, S.S. Nagarajan. The Pallavas ensured

that the 26 days of annual rainfall received by the Chennai area was captured by

surface tanks and temple tanks. Temple and village "sacred groves," where neem

and peepul abounded, served to prevent soil erosion and ensured a healthy

biosphere. Scientists at Cambridge today have discovered that planting neem and

peepul trees close together increases ozone levels with attendant health

benefits. In fact in Germany, Forest Strolls are an accepted form of therapy,

for the biosphere of the forest has curative properties. Besides fencing, neem

and peepul trees must be planted around the "Ooranies," says Mr. Nagarajan. But

only an effective water education programme can sustain proper utilisation of

water in the long term, he says.

(The writer is a senior consultant at the Apollo Hospitals, Chennai.)

sourced: http://www.hindu.com/2005/01/23/stories/2005012300021100.htm

 

 

 

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