Every drop counts for water conservation at these temples

Ludhiana: The ritual offering of water and milk to the deity collects in 200-foot-deep pits at the Vaishno Mata and Vishnu temples of Sundar Nagar in a water-saving solution that came from Pandit Atul Sharma and three members of the area’s residential society.
Pained to see how the water offered every morning to the Sun ran off into the drains to mix with sewage, the pandit thought of using this volume to recharge the groundwater reserve.Businessman Lucky Malhotra of Sundar Nagar Society said: “We started filtering the offered water and routing it into the ground. For that, we had to align the pits and make a separate 5-foot-deep section for milk.”
A pipe carries this water to the community park and some households as well. This groundwater is reusable during high summer. Pandit Atul Sharma said: “Most of the temple-goers take a bath there before offering water to Suryadev and milk to the Shivalingam. Earlier, all this water and milk used to collect in puddles around the temple, stagnate, create a foul smell, and turn a breeding ground for mosquitoes and flies.”
During the Hindu holy month of Shravan, a huge volume of water is poured over the idols of Lord Shiva and other deities, so the priest has advised the other temples as well to also adopt this method of water conservation. Businessman Sovit Jain of Sundar Nagar Society said: “In the rainy season, the gutters overflow and their sewage enters the Shiva temple. Pained to see it, we decided to bore into the ground to collect the offered water, which also solved the problem of sewage overflow and saved the environment.”
Members of the Sunder Nagar Society said it was not easy in the beginning to convince the priests to join this project. The cost of it is Rs 28,000 but benefits are much more. The society recommends it for every Indian temple.