Treat water bodies with respect and do not to make it impure: A note on the need to preserve water

Author: Kamal Bansal

Kamal Bansal in his brief note discusses the need to change our mindset towards preserving our natural resources, especially water and treating our water bodies with respect.

In the present state of environment, destroyed and devastated by none other than we people, the most precious and difficult to get things in life are:

• Pure water to drink
• Pure air to breathe
• Pure food to eat

We have stylish mobile phones, hi-tech cars and high rise buildings but not the above three things which are the basic requirements of life. Nature has gifted us snow-capped mountains, so many rivers and a beautiful season of rain besides huge reserves of underground water.

But we have miseraby handled (rather mishandled) this treasure from God and ruined everything. Even the purest of all, the holy river Ganga has not escaped our ill habits and practices.

We talk about so many technologies and sciences to purify water. But I think first requirement is "not to make our water bodies impure". It is only the discipline of not putting our sewage in rivers, that will make a drastic difference and will yield remarkable results within one year.

I had once visited Denmark and was astonished to learn that people drink tap water without any purification process. It is astonishing that Europeans who drink only packaged drinking water in India drink tap water at home. If they can maintain their natural resources than why can't we do it ?

I think more than technology, funds, resources or laws, we need to change our mindset to bring this change. If this is not changed, rest of the measures we take will be useless.