President Droupadi Murmu has appealed to scientists, town planners and innovators to try to develop techniques that help conserve water resources, noting that technology can play a key role in water conservation.
Speaking at the seventh edition of the India Water Week, Murmu said providing clean water is a big challenge which requires cooperation from all sections of the society. “There will be a need to effectively conserve water to meet the demands of our future generation and technology will play an important role in it. Hence it is my appeal to scientists, town planners and innovators that they try to develop techniques for conservation of water resources,” she said.
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Endorsing recycling of water resources, the president said it can play an important role in conservation and there is a need to raise awareness on the subject. Jal Shakti Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat underlined the need to adopt a holistic approach to conserve water resources.
“In this complex world, the issues related to water security have multi-sector challenges and to effectively tackle them, we need to adopt a holistic approach and keeping that in view, our government merged various divisions working on water resources and it has set an example in front of the world,” he said.
Spelling out the challenges put forth by climate change, Shekhawat said erratic and scanty rainfall has further aggravated the challenges in the field. Shekhawat said the government is following 5P principles in tackling the challenges of water conservation. “They are -- political will, public spending, partnerships, people's participation and persuasion – all these principles we are working on,” he said.
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Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, who was also present at the event, said the state has managed to rejuvenate 60 rivers. “In one part of the state, there are many rivers from the Himalayas which carry silt with them. There were no previous attempts to channelise them and to rejuvenate them, but now with our attempts, 60 rivers have been rejuvenated,” he said.
Talking about rejuvenation of the Ganga river, he said even dolphins have returned to the Ganga now. “We can say now that NMCG (National Mission for Clean Ganga) is an ideal example of how to carry out river rejuvenation,” he said. The Chief Minister said by providing clean water, deaths due to Japanese encephalitis have dropped by 95 per cent in the northern state between 2017 and 2021.
Uttar Pradesh Governor Anandiben Patel said providing clean water will also play an important role in fighting malnutrition in the country and can help save many children's lives.The India Water Week is a five-day-long event that has brought together experts, planners and stakeholders from across the globe to address the issues of sustainability of water resources development and management in line with sustainable development goals.
(With PTI inputs)
