Page 24 - Mann Ki Baat English

This month, the Pm Shri Narendra
Dyeing Industries of Tiruppur,
Tamil Nadu: A model to
conserve water.
Dyeing industry association of
Tiruppur, Tamil Nadu, has set an
example of efficient water
management practices being
practiced in the industries. They have
been saving up to 12 Crore litres of
water every day by using recycled
water recovered from dye effluent
using Zero Liquid Discharge (ZLD)
Technology, discovered by the dyers
of the city themselves. Since 2012, the
dyers have implemented this
technology in all the dyeing
industries of the town.
This environmentally sensitive
practice became possible when 326
dyeing industries came together to
form 18 Common Effluent Treatment
Plants (CETPs) and 100 Individual
Effluent Treatment Plants (IETPs). The
result is that, today the Dyeing
industry of Tiruppur is using 90% to
95% recycled water for their
processing.
Its impact is visible from the fact that
Before 2000, the water of the river
Noyyal wasn’t fit for usage in
agriculture because of high Total
Dissolved Solid (TDS) , but after the
implementation of the ZLD system,
the river water is again safe to be
used for irrigation purposes.
The extreme summers also lead to
scarcity of water in our country. Hence, it
becomes important to protect our water
resources to ensure water availability to
all. For centuries, water conservation has
been a part of our civilization in the form
of step wells, ponds, etc. The ancient
wisdom of water conservation was a
collective vision of our ancestors, who
wanted future generations to benefit
from it. The Vavs, Baolis, Johad, Kunds,
Talabs are some such examples of
traditional methods through which our
ancestors conserved water. But, with
time we moved to newer methods of
water conservation and forgot about the
ones that were gifted to us by our
previous generations.
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PM Shri Narendra Modi highlighted the
efforts of Arun Krishnamurthy from
Chennai, who is running a campaign
to clean ponds and lakes of India. He
has already cleaned 150 ponds and
lakes. Similarly, Rohan Kale from
Maharashtra started a campaign to
preserve hundreds of stepwells, most
of which are centuries old and a part
of our heritage. Bansilal-Pet Kuan in
Secundrabad was filled with mud and
garbage due to years of neglect, is
now undergoing preservation with
public participation.
In the past eight years, the
government of India, under the
leadership of PM Shri Narendra Modi
has been working dedicatedly
towards Swacchh Bharat and Water
Conservation. In the same light, the
government launched Jal Shakti
Abhiyan in the year 2019, which aims
at water conservation and water
resource management. With the
theme, “Catch the rain, where it falls
when it falls”, the mission covers both
rural as well as urban areas of all the
districts of the country. Apart from
rain water harvesting, watershed
development, afforestation, the
mission also focuses on renovating
traditional water bodies. As on 26th
July 2021, 81,776 traditional water
bodies have been renovated.
Citing the example of Jal Mandir
Scheme of Gujarat, which played a
significant role in protecting the
stepwells, PM Shri Narendra Modi
requested the citizens to run similar
campaigns at local level.
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Modi mentioned our work during
Mann ki Baat. The team working on
restoration is very happy that our
efforts are being appreciated at
such high levels. The locals of
Maharashtra are also happy that
the nation is getting to know about
the beautiful stepwells of
Maharashtra. We wish that more
people will join our campaign in
coming times
Rohan Kale
Environmentalist, Maharashtra
India, being a tropical country, faces
harsh summers each year. There are
certain places in the country like
Rajasthan, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh etc.
where temperature reaches above 40
degrees during the season, and on
some days, the mercury even touches
50 degree celsius. Such extreme
conditions affect not only humans,
but our animals and bird friends too.
When Mupattam Sri Narayanan ji
from Kerala saw the plight of animals
and birds during summers, he started
a project called ‘Pots for Water of Life’.
In this campaign, he is distributing
earthen pots to the people so that
animals and birds do not face water
problems during the summers. It is
wonderful to know that the number of
earthen pots donated by Mupattam is
about to cross 1 lakh.