The Tamil Nadu Water Supply and Drainage Board organised a rally on Tuesday to create awareness on the importance of consuming safe drinking water and the need to test water quality as part of the National Rural Drinking Water and Sanitation Awareness Week observance.
Coimbatore Corporation city engineer G. Rajendran, Tamil Nadu Water Supply and Drainage Board’s Rural Water Supply executive engineer K. Elango and executive engineers R.C. Ravichandran, T. Sukumar and S. Sampathkumar led the rally.
More than 300 officials and students marched from the Government College of Technology to the TWAD Board’s office on Bharathi Park Road.
The officials also distributed handbills that highlighted the need to protect and maintain water supply infrastructure, teaching students to wash hands before having food, segregating and processing waste and importance of personal hygiene.
They said that the Board had given water testing kits to panchayats and trained the staff there to test water at source. The Board had also trained teachers in panchayat schools. Plus, if the residents doubted the quality of the water supplied, they could approach the panchayat officials or the laboratory in the Board to get the water tested. The Board had been conducting the rural water supply awareness rally for the past three years.
In the Nilgiris district, District Collector P. Shankar flagged off the awareness rally. A release from the district administration said that the objective was to protect water bodies and improve the quality of water. The district administration would test water samples in Ooty, Coonoor and Kotagiri, the release added.
