BENGALURU: Each day of the summer gets hotter than the last and a severe water crisis looms in the city. In such a situation, a few concerned citizens are donning the role of 'water warriors' and spearheading a campaign to make six wards in the city “water literate” thereby easing the prevalent condition.
Meenakshi Ravikrishna who will look after the campaign in her ward, Shantalanagar says the main objective is to help people become aware about water conservation through various concrete steps. The five other wards where the campaign will be carried out are BTM Layout, Pulikeshi Nagar, Vijayanagar, KR Puram and Marappanapaly. The residents heading the campaign were all part of of the B.PAC Civic Leadership Incubator Program (B.CLIP).
“It will not be only an awareness drive. We will help people with rainwater harvesting initiatives, sensatise them about the use of tap aerators. An event called the ‘Jal Utsav’ will be organized along with the ‘Composting Santhe’ of the BBMP,” she says.
The campaign heads will take the help of resident welfare associations and will also undertake measures such as adopting one government school each, reducing consumption of water in colleges. “The mayor has also agreed to help us and indicated that she will help with measures such as installing rainwater harvesting facilities in government buildings such as police quarters,” says Meenakshi.
A memorandum has also been signed with the BWSSB to try and propagate the use of water tap aerators on the lines of BESCOM promoting the use of LED bulbs.
“Studies have shown that at least 30 percent of water gets saved with tap aerators. BESCOM has a package whereby one can purchase 10 bulbs for just `1000. We are trying to push something similar to this,” says Meera.
Soumya Reddy, who is looking after the BTM layout campaign says: “Water is a huge crisis and this is a step to give it an urgency on the lines of solid waste management. Making water conservation a huge issue is the need of the hour and we aim to do this by first working on the ground and to build a discussion over the issue,” she says.
The campaing which began a few days back will be carried out for a year simultaneously in these six wards as part of phase one. In the other phases it might be extended to other wards depending on the response and effectiveness of the campaign. An assessment will be carried oit after a month of the campaign to gauage its success.
As many as 300 people who are working in the six wards and already undertaking various work in the area of sanitation, waste management and other issues will be engaged in this new initiative.
A number of coordinators at various levels such as - zones, ward and even assembly level is being envisaged.