Varanasi: The Banaras Hindu University, which is celebrating its 100 years of journey, is all set to frame its own water policy for judicious use of water on the campus. The working group for the Malaviya Research Centre for Ganga, River Development and Water Resource Management (MRCGRDWRM) of BHU at its meeting on Thursday decided to chalk out the policy focusing zero wastage of water.
"BHU will be the first university of the country to have its own water policy," claimed the MRCGRDWRM chairman Prof. BD Tripathi. He told TOI that main feature will include minimization of water consumption, recycling of waste water, proper check on water wastage, and encouraging rainwater harvesting and groundwater recharge. "The policy will act as a role model for other institutions as well as states and country to replicate it for water conservation," he said.
The BHU vice chancellor Prof. GC Tripathi reconstituted the working group of MRCGRDWRM on Thursday. Earlier, a five-member working group was first introduced in July last year. Now, the group has 12-members led by Tripathi. The other members of the working group are Prof A K Joshi of the department of sociology, Prof Ramesh Chand of the department of mycology and plant pathology, Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Dr Pradeep Srivastava of School of Biochemical Engineering, IIT-BHU, Prof. Sadashiv Kumar Dwivedi of Sanskrit department, Prof. BB Prasad of Chemistry department, Institute of Science, Prof. Surendra Singh of Botany department, Prof. RK Mall of the Institute of Environment and Sustainable Development (IESD), Prof. Gopal Nath of department of microbiology, Institute of Medical Sciences, Prof. Devendra Mohan of Civil Engineering, IIT-BHU, Dr. NVC Rao of Geology department and joint registrar (development).
The main objectives of the centre are to generate basic ecological data, develop environment friendly technologies, produce water resource managers and river development experts to cater national and international needs of water resource management and rejuvenation of river Ganga, said Tripathi adding that it will also run UG and PG courses on river and water management.
It is the only centre in the country completely dedicated to research and academic programmes on river and water resource management linking several departments of various faculties for multidisciplinary research. It is a tribute to the founder of BHU Mahamana Madan Mohan Malaviya, who had deep regard for the rivers, specially Ganga, he said adding, "Ganga's uninterrupted flow was maintained through an agreement between British Government and a group of Hindu leaders including maharajas of different states headed by Mahamana in 1916."
