Assam: AAEA urges government to promote rainwater harvesting

Staff Reporter

GUWAHATI: The All Assam Engineers’ Association (AAEA), a forum of graduate engineers in Northeast India, appreciated Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) Sarsanghchalak Dr. Mohan Bhagwat for making an fervent appeal for caring for nature and protecting Mother Earth.

The RSS chief, while delivering his annual address on the occasion of Vijayadashami, urged everyone to conserve water, avoid single-use plastic, plant tree saplings, and finally save the planet for all living beings.

Sarsanghchalak Bhagwat, who leads the 99-year-old largest socio-cultural organisation in the world, observed in his address from Nagpur on October 1, 2024, that the ongoing material developmental journey, inspired by an incomplete ideological basis of consumerism, has emerged as a journey of destruction for the entire creation on Earth. He pointed out that due to the rapid deforestation, the greenery gets destroyed, rivers dry up, and chemicals poison food, water, and air in the last few decades.

For a sustainable, holistic, and integrated development on the basis of Bharatiya traditions, a unanimous ideological consensus across the country will be needed, but till then, Bhagwat urged everyone to practice three small but important initiatives. First, people should use water as minimally as possible and harvest the rainwater. Secondly, avoid using single-use plastic, and thirdly, increase the greenery with massive plantation programs where the conventional species of trees should be encouraged.

“The Assam government should launch a colossal initiative to promote the practice of rainwater harvesting, as we are a rain-fed state. By doing so, we can promote an example for the water-scarce human population across the world, which may face a severe fresh water crisis by 2050,” said AAEA president Er Kailash Sarma, working president Er NJ Thakuria, and secretary Er Inamul Hye.

The forum appealed to authorities concerned to formulate policies for making the rainwater harvesting enterprise mandatory in every household, precisely the urban apartments with a large number of tenants. It argued that the rain gives relatively clean water with no cost that can be preserved and used in need following very simple and affordable technologies. The rainwater may be used as a primary source or a supportive step for the wells or ponds.

“The growing dependence on underground water even for large irrigation purposes may pose a serious threat to already depleted groundwater levels. It should be time (also the responsibility to everyone) for helping the groundwater research so that it can feed the increasing population in the days to come,” said the AAEA, adding that the rainwater must be recognised as a resource (and not the garbage to throw away) for essential human utility.

Also Read: Assam Governor Gulab Chand Kataria stresses rainwater harvesting (sentinelassam.com)

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