As drought tightens its grip on Kozhikode city, the district administration has launched a three-pronged project to protect water sources, maintain water bodies and improve the quality of drinking water. Conceived as a long-term project and called Shudham Sundaram Nammude Kozhikode, it aims to include all the government departments to pool in their resources and personnel at the official level, mobilise public support and even make water conservation a mandatory topic in daily school assemblies across the district. Speaking at the launch, District Collector C.A Latha declared the minimalist slogan of the project – Drinking water is precious, use it sparingly. School assemblies would be a stage to conduct classes on water conservations and to inculcate healthy water habits in the student community, Ms. Latha said. She said the district administration is working on a scheme to install water purifiers and initiate rain water harvesting mechanism in all schools. Comprehensive survey Under the project, the Education Department will conduct a comprehensive survey and repair the broken pipes, tanks and water taps in public schools here. Planned efforts would be made to monitor the quality of cool drinks and food items sold in and outside school premises with the help of the respective parent teachers associations and the health department. Besides this, the project envisages renovation of wells, natural and artificial ponds, pollution control as its primary objectives, Ms. Latha said. Joint effort The district authorities are mooting a joint effort for water and soil conservation, initiate farming and irrigation methods which uses minimum water and comprehensive survey of soil quality and launch programmes to conserve the water table in the district with the help of the Ground Water department. The District Collector said social and cultural organisations, residents associations, Kudumbasree and clubs should play a major role and team up Centre for Water Resources, Development and Management (CWRDM), Pollution Control Board, Education Department, local bodies department, Kerala Water Authority and soil conservation department. Of this, the Kerala Water Authority, Ground Water department and CWRDM would conduct consistent checking of domestic wells and ponds on the drinking water quality. Further, Ms. Latha said a 24X7 control room would be set up to manage the rising drought-like situation across the district. Tanker lorries carrying drinking water would be commissioned in drought-hit areas with the help of the respective local self-governing bodies, she said.