Urban News

While talking to the students of the institute, Khanna emphasized the need to religiously follow water conservation strategies. He informed that out of 138 blocks of Punjab, 84 have been declared as dark zones as per a study of Central Ground Water Board. In 1980, 3712 villages in Punjab were short of water and the number has increased to 6287 in 1990 which in a year’s time reached 8518. “ At present, we have 11849 villages suffering from water shortage and this does not figure the common urban water crisis problem,” he pointed out.

Khanna added “There are 15 lakh tube wells in Punjab that keep on digging deep to extract water and sustain farming.” On one hand it has rained heavily this season and resulted in floods and on the other hand there is receding water table. We should create rainwater harvesting structures at different places, even on roads, so that the rainwater gets absorbed into the Earth.

Indicating similarity between the Earth and human body, he explained; just like human body our Earth also needs water to remain healthy He emphasised on the need to prevent exploitation of the ground water resources which is becoming the cause of water surplus zones turning into deserts,” he said.

S L Aggarwal, Managing Director of Rattan Group of Institutions, thanked Khanna for his enlightening lecture and promised institute’s support to save water. Later, Khanna initiated tree plantation drive at the college campus and flagged off environment awareness rally. Students with placards and banners in their hands went through lanes of Mohali calling upon people to conserve environment and plant trees.