SHOPIAN: With an aim to take water conservation to grass-roots level through youth and public participation across the district, the District Youth Services and Sports department Shopian on Friday organised a “Water Restoration” campaign at Heerpora Shopian.
On the occasion, the District Youth Services and Sports Officer (DYS&SO), Gurmukh Singh Dutta called for active participation of sports youth and people of Heerpora in water conservation activities.
The initiative was started by the DYS&SD on 16 July, and was dedicated to the residents of the area. The cleaning of the spring was done with full dedication by the Rehber e Khel teachers and officials of the department under the supervision of DYS&SO.
Speaking on the occasion, Dutta underscored the significance of water conservation and stressed for judicious use of water, saving water bodies and harvesting rain water.
He called upon all sports youth to come forward, recognize their responsibilities to complement government’s efforts, and actively participate in rainwater harvesting and other water conservation activities using new techniques as well as traditional methods to revive water bodies.
“Our existence and prosperity is connected to water which is a great gift of nature, our ancestors have done significant work in the past to harvest rain water and store it and now, it is the responsibility of the new generation to work for the revival of traditional methods of rain water harvesting”, Dutta maintained.
There is a need to implement interventions for water conservation like mapping of water resources, preparing water conservation plans, cleaning traditional water bodies, removing encroachments and obstructions in water channels to achieve the desired results on the ground, he added.

KR Desk