For the last three weeks, Neelkanth Joshi, 60, and his colleagues have been stepping out for their early morning walk with an agenda — to check on housing societies with overflowing water tanks.
“Every day at 4.30am, about 12 of my friends and I set out for a walk and check if water tanks are overflowing in any housing society in the neighbourhood. If we come across such incidents, we inform the society members about it and ask them to take responsibility for it,” said Joshi.
“If no action is taken despite the warning, we write the name of the society on a board that we have placed in the area,” said Joshi, who took up the initiative after attending a session on water conservation organised by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) earlier this month.
Like Joshi’s group, which has compelled societies to check water leakage, several senior citizens in the city have come forward to spread awareness on water conservation.
“I wanted to guide people on the importance of rainwater harvesting. But, I wanted to learn the fundamentals first,” said Subhash Rane, 62, a Malad resident, who recently completed a course on rainwater harvesting from a school set up by an environmental organisation in Thane.
{{/usCountry}}“I wanted to guide people on the importance of rainwater harvesting. But, I wanted to learn the fundamentals first,” said Subhash Rane, 62, a Malad resident, who recently completed a course on rainwater harvesting from a school set up by an environmental organisation in Thane.
{{/usCountry}}Rane, who travelled to Thane once a week to attend three-hour sessions on rainwater harvesting, said, “I have always been working for water conservation, and have filed complaints on the BMC’s helpline (1916) each time I came across leakages.”
Mahim resident Chaaya Veerkar, 60, too, is now set to teach the importance of saving water in the summer camp that will be held in their society next month. “I will use popular fables to give them the message. I also plan to refer to the books on water conservation that were brought out by the civic body last year,” she said.