Seems my blog will be a biweekly or tri-weekly affair. But that seems fine, as neither I nor others would have the time to see it daily.
I am yet in Kolkata. Everyday, walking to and fro from my guest house, I see the picture of water gushing out of a large broken underground pipe ( See picture attached-seems the Kolkata Municipal Corporation water supply runs underneath. Ironically, in the pic. there is a rally of Trinamool Congress on the other side of the road ). Water gushes out with great force and in large capacity almost through the day and most of it is wasted- except for the taxi drivers who wash their cars or some street people who take their morning bath in the same waters. Does the municipality care- while it is unable to supply water to many places. There was report in the Sunday Times how in a place called Kulti, ladies and children have to walk for more than 3 miles to fetch water, while more water is wasted at this single place than all the water the village might require). There might be hundreds of such fountains of waste in Kolkata alone
This water wastage is not limited to the the government but to our homes as well. Without realising (or is it our who the hell cares attittude?? let others conserve water, not me??) we waste a lot more water than required. Brushing, washing of clothes and utensils with the tap open, letting water flow while having a shave or shower, using large flush tanks which wastes at least 10 litres of water every time we flush ( when only 5-6 ltrs are reqd.), leaking faucets all contribute to mammoth wastage of water. For a short moment it may seem small, but when added over the entire year and over a large population, this amount is staggering. It could provide enough water to millions and millions of people who do not have access to water. It could save millions and millions of manhours (or shall we say women or girl child hours) that could give the girl child time for studies and a decent education...give her a chance to get a same shot at life as her fortunate borther...
We do not lose a chance to blame governments and politicians and burecrats....but do we ever peep inside to see what we could do first....let us each do what we can, save even a bucket of water every day and then look outside...We need to become crusaders or water savers first- like the global warming, it is no more a choice now- it is becoming a must..the water we see will not last long...so save it....we have in our own generation seen how we have been forced to shift from natural water sources to bottled water- let us not force our children's generation to live w/o water for days..or live on ration water...we have to conserve water on a massive scale....we will preach rain water harvesting and such measures later, but can we first start with our own sweet homes??? and tell our own near and dear ones of the need to save this precious elixir..for our own self and our future generations...we owe it to them....
Pls. have a look at the below link to see the magnitude of water wastage and what little we could do...or google it yourself....
No comments:
Post a Comment