Chandigarh, March 23
Coca Cola India and CII Northern Region have joined hands to launch a water conservation and management project called Conserve. The project aims at promoting industry engagement in rainwater harvesting and community water conservation programmes through awareness generation and capacity building.
Other than Chandigarh, the project will be implemented over a period of one year in Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Rajasthan and Uttarakhand. “To meet the growing requirement of water and to be counted as a development-oriented nation, it is imperative to develop new water sources and to conserve, recycle and re-use water wherever possible,” said Deep Kapuria, Chairman CII Northern Region.
“It has been shown that conservation of water through rain water harvesting and artificial ground water recharge can generate about 125 km cube/year of additional water. Similarly recycling industrial and municipal waste water can generate around 177 km cube/year water,” he added.
"At present, the chronic water shortages, dramatic population growth and aging water facilities are increasing the potential for conflict over water resources. A reversal of attitude has to take place to conserve water,” Kapuria said. Elaborating on the project campaign activities, Kapuria said: “Basically, these would be of three types. Firstly, we would undertake a policy campaign as the Indian water laws have remained weak and not kept pace with global practices. We will undertake documentation of the best practices in the world and evolve modalities on how they could be implemented in the Indian context. Secondly, we will create innovative models and demonstrate them to corporates. Thirdly, we will assist in implementation of Central and State Government programmes: This will be primarily to demonstrate what is achievable presently and set up minimum benchmarks in different regions through involvement of corporates, NGOs, so as to ensure a minimum quality of implementation in Government programmes.”