From left, Probir Banerjee, Convenor of Alliance for Good Governance, PondyCAN, S. Baskaran, Ex-Councillor of Thengaithittu, P. Jawahar, Secretary, Department of Science, Technology and Environment and M. Kandasamy, Commissioner, Puducherry Municipality, are taking water pledge at the inauguration of the ‘Water Fest-25’, held at Pondy Yacht Club in Puducherry on Sunday.
| Photo Credit: S.S. KUMAR
The fifth edition of the WaterFest ‘25 – Stewardship for Water and Biodiversity began on Sunday, bringing together non-governmental organisations, community experts, individuals, and the Departments of Local Administration, Education, Forests and Wildlife and Science, Technology and Environment.
Organised by ‘All For Water For All’ (A4W4A), a collective of individuals and organisations working in the Puducherry-Villupuram-Auroville-Cuddalore (PVAC) bioregion, the festival will look at management of water resources in the bioregion as these places share geographic characteristics
Inaugurating the WaterFest ‘25 and launching the Citizen Science initiative, Secretary, Department of Science, Technology and Environment, P. Jawahar said the Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) in water in Puducherry had values of 2,000 mg/l because of being solely dependent on groundwater. To address this issue, the government has planned to set up reverse osmosis treatment plants and the project is in the pipeline.
Mr. Jawahar said the government was already collaborating with Svarnim Puducherry, a unit of Sri Aurobindo Society and a slew of initiatives including water budgeting and water audit in schools have been planned.
According to Probir Banerjee, founder of PondyCan and convenor of Alliance of Good Governance AGG, (a collective of non-governmental organisations), the purpose of the water festival is to basically build a collaboration with all the stakeholders to reconnect with water and also to take up collective action to restore waterbodies.
The seven-week festival, which will go on till March 22 (World Water Day) will see a kaleidoscope of events and activities across the PVAC bioregion.
“We will be partnering with institutions, the government, schools to address the complex challenge of water. Nature has an incredible resilience but our human actions have pushed the environment to the limit and now it cannot restore on its own. This water festival is a call for action because water matters for everybody. The aim is to build a culture of collaboration and shared responsibility for the integrated management of our water resources and biodiversity,” Mr. Probir added.
M. Kandasamy, Commissioner, Puducherry Municipality, K. Kalamegam, Environmental Engineer, DSTE, Dr. P. Arun Kumar, Svarnim Puducherry and Anjali Schiavina, founder of Aquaterra and Pondy Yacht Club were present.
Published – February 02, 2025 11:12 pm IST