PANAJI: Loyola High School, Margao, on Tuesday received the Groundwater Augmentation Award at the Third National Groundwater Congress in New Delhi organised to mark World Water Day.
“It is the first school in the country to receive this award,” Dinar Barros, promoter of the project, told The Hindu on telephone from New Delhi.
Mr. Barros paid rich tributes to agricultural scientist M.S. Swaminathan and to The Hindu for inspiring him to undertake groundwater augmentation activity.
He said that he acknowledged his debt to Dr. Swaminathan at the function in New Delhi.
About his project for the school of which he is an alumnus, Mr. Barros said it was taken up three years ago and the school saved around 55,000 litres of water which was used for daily activities such as gardening and sanitation, among others.
He acknowledged the cooperation of Principal of Loyola High School William D' Souza and Fr. Anthony Da Silva to implement the project successfully. The benefit of this rain-harvesting project had reached around 1,500 students and 64 teachers, administrative staff and residential faculty of the school, Mr. Barrosa said and hoped that this award would inspire other schools to take up such projects.
The project involves collecting water on the wide expanse of roof of the school buildings through different capacity storage tanks and using it for sanitation and gardening, thus saving drinking water in a big way.
Mr. Barros said: “Many people believe that we in Goa get so much rain that we simply do not seem to value water. I want to see a change in this mindset.”
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