Mandar Kolhapure’s Cutting Pani campaign awarded as Winner of Water Heroes contest by Govt of India

In an attempt to promote the value of water in general and for supporting country-wide efforts on water conservation and sustainable development of water resources, the Department of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation, the Ministry of Jal Shakti had launched “Water Heroes: Share Your Stories” Contest.

Mandar who runs a popular Belgaum Foodies page had launched this “CUTTING PANI” campaign which has been selected as the winner lwith the FIRST place from entries pan India.

When full is not needed, we ask for a cutting chai. When we know the value of a few ml of chai, then why not the same with water? Just because it is free? Remember, every drop of water is sacred, priceless, and has to be saved.

March is here and the summers have already arrived. Looking at the past experiences of acute shortage of drinking water during summers, Belgaum Foodies will be launching a campaign called ‘Cutting Pani’ on World Water Day on 22 March 2020.

Belgaum Foodies is a social media page covering the updates happening in the Belagavi food industry and has a follower base of more than 25000 foodies from Belagavi.

Having a good rapport with many hotels and restaurants in the city, we will be approaching many outlets and requesting them to serve only half a glass of drinking water to the customers.

It has been observed that when a full glass of water is served, customers just take a few sips and the rest goes wasted. We have designed posters for the campaign which will be posted in the hotel premises for awareness.

Cutting Pani Campaign has already been initiated in cities like Pune, Bengaluru, and Mumbai and has saved millions of liters of water on a daily basis. Though it looks small it directly affects the minds of the people that how even a small quantity of water is important.

According to the Asian Development Bank’s forecast, by 2030, India will have a water deficit of 50 percent. Research also shows that 7 out of 10 people don’t finish their glass of water, which then goes to waste.

We need to start acting now and do this for ourselves and generations to come. Else the day is not too far when we will see Full Pani and Half Pani in the menu cards along with the rates.

Posters of the campaigns were pasted in many hotels and restaurant owners were requested to serve only half a glass of water to customers. The award from the government is very significant as it will help us to intensify the campaign for 2021 and create more awareness.