Students of Goa's Kalay government school send postcards to NIO scientists to find solutions to save water

PANAJI: Students of government high school, Kalay in Sanguem— one of the farthest and remotest schools in Goa have been concerned enough with the importance of saving water. So they got together and wrote messages to save water on 11 Meghdoot postcards and then had them mailed to retired scientists of the National Institute of Oceanography (NIO). Meghdoot postcards are the lowest priced and carry an advertisement.
“Without water there is no life on Earth,” said Sanket Gaonkar, one of the students studying in Class VI. He cautioned people in his message to avoid wasting water, especially drinking water. Other students who wrote to the scientists said that mitigation measures are needed to fight forest fires and parched summers.
“The greatest brunt due to lack of water is faced by animals and the vegetation of the forest areas. If water holes run dry, animals will be forced to venture into places of human habitat to quench their thirst. Scientists must figure out mechanisms to reduce forest fires and also keep animals hydrated during summers,” Manjusha Desai, another student from Class VI told TOI.
Retired NIO scientists had recently visited the school to give stationery and other materials to needy students as a part of the goodwill efforts’ team of retired NIO scientists”. One of them, Dr Ramesh Kumar had given Meghdoot postcards to introduce the students to the art of letter writing.
Since postcards are an excellent medium for communication, cost only 25 paisa and can be sent anywhere within India, Kumar said that there is a need to encourage students to use postcards especially those studying in hinterlands. “In the era of mobile phones, this was probably the first time the students have written to anyone, visited the post-office or even seen a post box. There are several interesting replies by the students and some of them even had drawn excellent pictures on the postcards,” Kumar said.