Rainwater harvesting campaign starts in Uttar Pradesh

Manda (Uttar Pradesh), June 11(ANI): A campaign aimed at creating awareness about rainwater harvesting has begun in Uttar Pradesh.

The campaign, which started with educational movies being shown to people in Manda village, will also carry out awareness drives in other villages of Allahabad district to encourage people to take steps towards harvesting rainwater and other sources of water.

"If we collect water (by harvesting rainwater), it can be used in drinking and agriculture. Water is life. We liked the movie. We should conserve water as it is very important for life," said Shirish Nath Pandey, a local farmer.

People who took part in the programme said that the audio-visual medium chosen by the district authorities to show movies to villagers would help them to better understand the need to harvest rainwater at a time when water scarcity is widespread.

"Water-harvesting programme is very important to farmers. This audio-visual programme in the form of movies will create awareness about water harvesting amongst farmers. This way we can preserve water for our future generations,"said Jaiprakash Yadav, another local farmer.

Talking to mediapersons on the sidelines of the campaign, Chief Development Officer of Allahabad G. S. Naveen Kumar underscored the need to harvest rainwater.

"We understand that rainwater harvesting is the need of the hour and it is important that we need to take this message across to people, which will primarily include farmers and the villagers. So, we have decided to start a 'jal rath' which will go from village to village educating people and creating awareness about rainwater harvesting," Kumar said.

"This has a lot of venues, which have been made to educate people how to take simple techniques to harvest rainwater," he added.

The groundwater in the district had reached a comfortable level last year following the monsoons, but it has dipped sharply with the onset of scorching summers this year.

According to an estimate, about 35 percent of water is wasted every day in Allahabad district alone. (ANI)