SHILLONG: The Meghalaya Basin Development Authority (MBDA) in collaboration with Meghalaya Water Foundation (MWF) and Meghalaya Water Resources Development Agency (MWRDA) observed the World Water Day at the MBDA Conference Centre at Bishop Cotton Road here on Saturday.
Each year, World Water Day highlights a specific aspect of freshwater. Under the theme “Water and Sustainable Development”, the year 2015 provides an important opportunity to consolidate and build upon the previous World Water Days to highlight water’s role in the sustainable development agenda.
In Meghalaya, the challenge to “re govern water” requires change of mindsets that will enable stakeholders to perceive water differently.
The World Water Day 2015 will provide a platform for discourse to address these challenges by coming together as stakeholders from all levels and provide a collective action to launch the Meghalaya Springshed Initiative.
The main aim of the initiative is to ensure water security by mainstreaming scientific approaches to sustainable spring protection and management. Two main components to this initiative are capacity building and mainstreaming scientific approaches to spring protection and building demand and mobilizing communities for local project ownership.
Speaking on the occasion Chief Secretary, PBO Warjri said that Shillong has been depending on springs for over a hundred years and as such in recent years, the installation of bore wells had led to the depletion of natural springs. Talking about the Springshed initiative that is being undertaken, Warjri highlighted the importance of community participation which is not only ideal for water conservation but also for other developmental activities.
“We can have an army of volunteers to monitor and feed the data and have the reliable data on the State,” he said.
Earlier, Phrang Roy, president, Meghalaya Water Foundation, stressed on harnessing the traditional knowledge which resides with the communities and suggested a hybridisation between modern scientific knowledge and traditional wisdom in ensuring a sustainable water regime.
“For too long we have looked at the environment as something to extract from but forgotten the ecological aspect. It is important to now bring in ordinary people as change agents and custodians of our collective resources,” Roy stated.
The MBDA had roped in water experts Himanshu Kulkarni and Dr. Jared Buono to train the officials of the Water Resources and Soil Conservation Department on March 20-21 to map the springs and use tools to measure the discharge of spring water after visiting the perennial Umshing spring at Mawlai. The data collected from various springs in Meghalaya would then be computed so that the State knows exactly how many springsheds there are and how to recharge these.
Meghalaya Water Foundation, CEO ABS Swer also spoke on the occasion.
Government officials, civil society leaders and learned persons from across the country also attended the function.
