Water education, need of the hour - Sri Sathya Sai Baba

[Guest guest]

Water education, need of the hour

 

By Hiramalini Seshadri

 

 

Chennai: With extensive desertification of the Afro-Asian landmass,

drinking water has become the most precious commodity and water

management and water education have become vital issues in the 21st

century. In this context, it is a matter of pride that India has

taken the lead in these two areas; for, the past decade has

witnessed exemplary water projects with national and international

ramifications thanks to Project Water launched by the Sri Sathya Sai

Service Organisation, a non-political, non-profit NGO. On November

22, 1994, in the presence of the then Prime Minister, P.V. Narasimha

Rao, Sri Sathya Sai Baba announced the intention to provide water

for the worst-hit areas of the arid Rayalaseema belt in Andhra

Pradesh where people trudged for miles to get a pot of drinking

water.

 

The central trust of the organisation executed within a year

aprojectthat provided drinking water to 731 villages of Anantapur

district at a cost of Rs. 300 crores. Today, the effort is cited as

a perfect example of NGO-government-private sector cooperation —

between the Andhra Pradesh government, Larsen and Toubro and the

dedicated workforce of the central trust. The project was delivered

on time with exemplary fiscal management. The methods are worthy of

emulation, according to water experts. Sri Sathya Sai Baba had laid

down certain ground rules — no huge dams involving submergence of

forests, etc; the concepts of small is beautiful and making the most

of pre-existing infrastructure had to be followed.

 

For Anantapur, the Tungabhadra High Level Canal, the existing

smaller irrigation canals and the subsoil streams of dry riverbeds

were tapped. The capacities of pre-existing summer storage tanks

were increased, infiltration wells, booster stations, water

treatment plants, overhead reservoirs and groundlevel reservoirs

were constructed and a whopping 2,500 km of pipes were laid; and

over a million villagers benefited. The exercise was next duplicated

in Medak and Mahbubnagar districts at a cost of Rs. 30 crores each

and all projects have since been handed back to the government for

maintenance.

 

The icing on the cake however has been the Chennai water project.

The five million residents of Chennai today have water, thanks to

the concreting of the Kandaleru-Poondi canal which put an end to

water loss through breaches in the canal wall and the horrific

evaporation loss due to sluggish flow and poor depth-surface area

index.

 

Global ramifications

 

 

The international ramifications of these successful projects merit

mention. Besides studying these projects as duplicatable models for

the developing world, water experts have been impressed by the Water

Education project of the Zambia-based TAISSE (The African Institute

of Sathya Sai Education). The U.N.-HABITAT's Project Water Education

for African cities has drawn richly from the experience of a model

school at Ndola which pioneered a human values based approach to

Water Education. Victor Kanu, one-time Ambassador of Sierra Leone to

the U.K. who drew up the successful programme inspired by Sri Sathya

Sai Baba, was invited to the U.N.-HABITAT meeting of experts on

water management and education. Mr. Kanu's presentation was

unanimously adopted as a possible solution and he was next invited

to present the paper at a parallel special session of the U.N.

General Assembly at New York on June 6, 2001.

 

Thereafter action began; Mr. Kanu chaired a sub-regional meeting of

African countries and, subsequently, TAISSE prepared a pedagogic

guide, lesson plans and supplementary materials on water education

which are being integrated into the school curriculum in Ethiopia,

Kenya, Zambia, Ghana, Senegal and the Ivory Coast. The latest

development is that a water education project is being worked out

for East Asia after Mr. Kanu presented the African experience at a

Water Expert's conference at Manila. It is time that India took up

water education on a war-footing for in the long term only

enlightened community participation can ensure that the water

management projects are safe guarded and maintained. The Tamil Nadu

government's project of desilting the `Ooranies' and so on, though

laudable, will stand the test of time only if water education goes

hand in hand with water management.

 

India's rich heritage

 

 

Traditionally, we have a rich heritage of water education, says the

Chennai-based agronomist and water expert, S.S. Nagarajan. The

Pallavas ensured that the 26 days of annual rainfall received by the

Chennai area was captured by surface tanks and temple tanks. Temple

and village "sacred groves," where neem and peepul abounded, served

to prevent soil erosion and ensured a healthy biosphere. Scientists

at Cambridge today have discovered that planting neem and peepul

trees close together increases ozone levels with attendant health

benefits. In fact in Germany, Forest Strolls are an accepted form of

therapy, for the biosphere of the forest has curative properties.

Besides fencing, neem and peepul trees must be planted around

the "Ooranies," says Mr. Nagarajan. But only an effective water

education programme can sustain proper utilisation of water in the

long term, he says.