Tamil Nadu - Sivaganga   

Rural school students get a taste of mineral water

Healthy measure: A student of Panchayat Middle School at Kanchirankal near Sivaganga drinking purified water.

SIVAGANGA: Is it possible for poor students of rural schools to enjoy the benefit of drinking mineral water? Yes, it has become a reality with the launching of “Jalmani” scheme.

Minutes after the inauguration, a large number of students who lined up at the Panchayat Middle School at Kanchirangal near here on Friday were overjoyed to taste the quality water from a machine amid cheers from the gathering.

The noble scheme was announced by Finance Minister P. Chidambaram in the 2008-09 budget and allotted Rs. 200 crore. It was intended to implement the scheme to cover 1 lakh rural schools in the country. The Tamil Nadu Water Supply and Drainage Board (TWAD) has been selected to implement the scheme. It will cover all 32,108 primary, middle, high and higher secondary schools in the State in a phased manner.

As per the scheme, officials will collect water samples in select schools to find out chemical and microbial parameters.

The schools will be provided standalone water purifier system based on technological options such as ultra filtration and membrane filtration, reverse osmosis, ultra-violet radiation, ion exchange, hybrid multiple methods and simple disinfection methods.

Collector Pankaj Kumar Bansal said that, to start with, 20 rural elementary and middle schools, had been selected in the district. They were provided with standalone water purification system. Purified water would be supplied to them with immediate effect.

S. Nagarajan, Additional Collector, said that water samples were collected in 127 other schools to test chemical and microbial parameters for installing purification systems.

G. Viswanathan, Superintending Engineer, and C.V. Rajan, Executive Engineer, said that if the water samples in schools had Total Dissolved Salt (TDS) of more than 2,000 points, they would be installed with Reverse Osmosis plants.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

Rural school students get a taste of mineral water

Copyright © 2008, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu