By Aaliya Rushdi, TwoCircles.net,
Thiruvananthapuram: Given the gravity of water crisis in the southern state of Kerala, an unusual situation, the Kerala zone of Students Islamic Organisation of India (SIO) has come up with a mega project whereby they will provide water to 50 worst affected villages across the state. ‘A Drop for Life and Mind’ project launched last month by SIO at the hands of state water minister N.K. Premachandran will cover 2000 families who have to fetch water from long distance.
The project started on 25th February is aimed at those places where the people have to go miles in search of water. As a start, the organisation would find out 50 of such villages from among the 14 districts of the state. The project will be extended to more villages later.
According to the project, they will dig wells in water smelt areas and will pump out water from these wells to various pump houses in selected villages. The place for setting up the pump houses will be either the unused land in the village, or else the organisation would buy the land needed for the purpose. Tanks for storing the water will be erected in these pump houses. The tank will be built at a higher place.
In slope terrains, there will be level tanks and overhead tanks will be built at plane surface. Tapes will be set up at each house in the selected villages. Water will be pumped from the wells to the water tanks in the pump houses by using heavy power motors. Water will be available at each tape for 2 hours each in morning and evening. The project is expected to be completed within one year.
Till now the people of Kerala had only heard about the problem of water scarcity from some Northern states or some remote places. But now, the danger has hit Kerala also. This summer, Kerala gets heavy heat along with water shortage. The places in the state like Vyttila, Vietnam etc are getting dried up.
According to government studies, around 60% people in the State do not get water enough to drink and about one third of these people get affected with water-borne deceases every year due to the consumption of contaminated water. The number of people dying because of the scarcity of water is much more than that of those dying through riots or natural calamities. So, the Government is trying to take awareness on this menace. As a part the Government of Kerala pleaded the people to come back to the nature and save the whole mankind from the harmful after effects to come hereafter.