HYDERABAD: Vice-President of India M Venkaiah Naidu on Wednesday called for a ‘Jan Andolan’ on water conservation and underlined the importance of peoples' participation in making it a success. The Vice-President also suggested to municipal authorities to make rainwater harvesting mandatory for every new building.
Delivering virtually the inaugural address at the second National Water Awards Ceremony, the Vice-President referred to how Swachh Bharat Abhiyan became a mass movement and said he was speaking out of personal experience as he was the Urban Development Minister when it was launched.
"We have many innovative initiatives taken up by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. All of them are moving forward with the active participation of the people," Naidu said. He cautioned that there was a danger of potable water becoming a scarce resource in the future.
Pointing out that only 3 per cent of the water available on earth constitutes fresh water and only 0.5 per cent of that was available for drinking, he said: "Reduce, Reuse and Recycle must be the watchwords if we have to hand over a sustainable and liveable planet to the future generations."