Water Day celebrated at Nauni 

Shimla, Mar 23 – The Department of Environmental Science, Dr. YS Parmar University of Horticulture and Forestry, Nauni in collaboration with IDP organised a full-day event to mark World Water Day-2022 on Tuesday. The theme of the event was ‘Groundwater: Making Invisible, Visible’.

Over 130 UG and PG students of both the colleges, members of the SPACE club and IDP participated in the event. The objective of the event was to raise awareness on critical issues of groundwater to the level of everyday understanding and generate actions for its management and support the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 6: water and sanitation for all by 2030.

Sandeep Negi, Registrar of the university was the Chief Guest of the programme. He pointed out that groundwater is very critical for life and there was an urgent need to protect it from overexploitation in order to meet the needs of the present as well as future population. He suggested using the traditional wisdom for the conservation of groundwater.

Professor Satish Bhardwaj, HOD of the Department of Environmental Science pointed out that groundwater is the largest source of freshwater and more than half of the irrigation water is contributed by it to grow the world’s food and is a key strategic reserve in times of drought. He said that the rapid unchecked population growth and rising quality of life along with increasing demand for food and eco-illiteracy are putting strain on groundwater resources. Professor Bhardwaj added that climate change and associated changes to the water cycle vastly complicated the challenge of sustaining groundwater supplies for the foreseeable future.

He further advised that the surface and groundwater must be managed conjunctively as ‘one water’ and treating both sources as separate entities is not scientifically justified. Dr. K K Raina, Guest of honour and Principal Investigator of the IDP project informed that the reduction in groundwater will translate into major declines in agricultural productivity and energy production, with the potential for sky-rocketing food prices and profound economic and political ramifications.

Competitions like slogan writing, painting, skit and declamation were organized on the occasion. Bhavya Thapa, PhD 1st year, Department of Environmental Science and Nivedita, a fourth-year student of BSc of College of Forestry bagged the first prize in slogan writing and painting competition respectively. Aastha Thakur student of BSc 3rd year of College of Horticulture stood first in declamation while the PhD 2nd-year girl students of Department of Environmental Science took home the first prize in skit competition. The theme of the skit is to conserve springs at the local level with community participation. The students along with faculty members of the University took a pledge to protect and sustainably use the groundwater on an individual basis. Dr. Rajeev Aggarwal, Dr. MK Brahmi, the president of SPACE Club, Dr. HC Sharma and Dr. Pratima Vaidya also took part in the event. Dr. KK Raina gave away the prizes to the winners. Dr. MS Jangra proposed the vote of thanks.