Journalism of Courage
Pune-based Marathi stand-up comedian and television artiste Makarand Tilloo’s visit to drought-prone Marathwada last year was an eye-opener. Alarmed at the dipping water levels and agrarian crisis, he has taken up a campaign setting up “Jal Rakshak” teams with the aim of replacing leaking water taps and saving 365 crore litres of water. In Pune, his teams – which involve school and college students, laughter club groups and others – have replaced 10,000 leaking taps at various slums. “It is a step-by-step process and we plan to have as many as one lakh people as ‘Jal Rakshaks’,” Tilloo told The Indian Express.
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The mission to stop water leakages has reached 38 places, including Pune, Talegaon, Chakan, Manchar, Rajgurunagar, Narayangaon, Daund and Indapur. “Up to 32-40 per cent of water is wasted due to leakage. As per my mathematical calculation, if one litre of water is wasted every minute then we are wasting 1,440 litres daily and this means 5.25 lakh litres every year. Can we then plug this leakage by at least replacing the water taps,” he said.
The movement was initiated at schools where a fun element was brought in by the laughter club groups when talking about the environment. “We went to 79 schools and soon had the participation of 37,000 students on our mission. Special prizes were also announced for the best teams that could plug leakages,” he said.
The momentum was built as Tilloo took the campaign to saving groups (bachat gat) and involved several volunteers to survey locations like slums, government buildings, schools and gardens to find leaking water taps. “The cost factor was not a problem as initially I spent from my pocket but when the teams were set up, people spoke about donating branded water taps. So I started it by celebrating my mother’s 75th birthday and donated equal number of water taps. Soon several people celebrated their 61st birthday and had other such programmes where water taps were donated,” he said.
According to civic authorities, there are 560 slums in Pune and Tilloo’s team fanned out at various places to check the leakage. “We have repaired taps and replaced them at Vaiduwadi, More Vasti, Kasewadi, Janwadi and several other slums,” Tilloo said.
Tilloo sets up teams at local places where he gives a talk or then involves the laughter clubs to talk about the campaign. At Talegaon, the municipal authorities even imbibed his example and started awarding a rose to persons who helped save water. “The next phase will eventually be rainwater harvesting. Talking simply to students, we tell them that rainwater harvesting would be like their final examination. First, they have to learn how to save water, plug leakages and then conserve rainwater. So now they will visit societies and convince the chairman and members to stop water spilling from overhead tanks,” he said.
