In a campaign to popularise water conservation methods in the state,
the Communications and Capacity Development Unit (CCDU) under the Water
Resources Department, is joining hands with the National Savings Scheme
(NSS) of the Finance Department.

Under the scheme
‘Jalasampadhyam’, set to be inaugurated at the state-level here on
Tuesday, the NSS will provide the ‘army’ and the CCDU the ‘ammunition’
to take the message of water conservation to all the households in the
state.

“There are around 79 lakh families in the state and between
65-66 lakh of these are visited by our agents at least once every month
as part of collecting savings,” NSS Director Jose Jacob said.

“With
around 11,000 agents, mostly women and many of them housewives, the NSS
has the largest number of personnel than any other department. Nobody
will be able to deliver the message of water conservation at the
grassroot-level better.”

This “army of agents”, as Jacob calls
them, will be trained by the CCDU at the state, district, sub-district
and block levels over the course of the coming two months, CCDU director
V Subhash Chandra Bose said.“We will introduce the resource persons of
the NSS to methods of rainwater harvesting, well-recharge, creation of
soak pits, and basic sanitation concepts such as not to construct
toilets near water sources, how to test the quality of water etc,” Bose
said.“This will help overcome our shortage of personnel as the NSS
agents will take with them leaflets prepared by us when they go on their
monthly calls,” he said. This, Bose said, will be a year-long campaign
where the agents trained by the CCDU would visit the houses.Finance
Minister K M Mani will inaugurate the scheme at the Govt Guest House
here on Tuesday evening.