“We need to learn lessons from history to avoid natural disasters,” said A. Dhanalakshmi, Joint Secretary, Government of India’s Department of Science and Technology.
She was the chief guest at the Technoscape 23, the three-day international conference on sustainable technologies for water and wastewater treatment organised by Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT), Vellore in association with Yokohama National University, Japan and Gdansk University of Technology, Poland.
“Water also has the power to destroy any civilization. Historians say that due to the manipulation of the natural flow of water’s direction in the Indus Valley, water led to flooding which led to the destruction of the civilisation. We need to learn lessons from history to avoid these types natural disasters,” Ms. Dhanalakshmi said. “We need to protect natural resources including lakes, ponds, rivers,” she added.
DST has created a nano-membrane technology that enables atmospheric water generation integrated with concentrated solar photovoltaic modules to improve the water concentration rate, she pointed out. VIT, Vellore and the National Institute of Hydrology (NIH), Roorkee have entered into an agreement, in which DST will provide facility for river bank filtration in Tungabhadra river in Karnataka by which about 2,000 people would get benefitted, she noted..
In his presidential address, Dr. G. Viswanathan, Founder-Chancellor, VIT said people have the duty and responsibility to preserve and protect water bodies and there was a need to increase pre-capita availability of water in India. M. Adul Wahab, Managing Director, KH Exports India Private Limited took part in the function as Guest of Honour and delivered his address.
Other officials from VIT and over 200 delegates from 25 countries including Japan, Poland, Canada and Estonia are participating in the conference.
