CWRDM – A water world of its own

CWRDM – A water world of its own

By Sandra Satheesh
Class X B

9^th July is one such day which the students of Std X batch 2012-13 will never forget. We had our first outdoor trip – a study tour to the Centre for Water Resource Development and Management (CWRDM).

We entered the gate and to my right, I could see the famous Kerala School of Mathematics. The CWRDM was a large green and white building and the entire place was filled with greenery. One could point out the glass building tilted “S. Vasudev Block” which consisted of the library too. When we were walking down the slope and on the way we saw the isotope hydrology division, medicinal garden under the National Horticulture Mission, experimental plot of list metric studies, etc. Then, we reached our first site of rainwater harvesting, under construction. It had a concrete layer at the bottom covered with plastic sheets on top of it. Capacity is 1 lakh litre. There was also a fence for protection. White patches were made to plaster cracks caused by the effect of sunlight.

Our next destination was the Water Heritage Museum. The in-charge, Mr. Prasannakumar gave us a lecture and then, we stepped in.

The museum was filled with beautiful structures describing the methods of rainwater harvesting from the ancient times. We also saw a small film created by CWRDM on its efforts at Lakshadweep.

Soon, we climbed back to the old slope after visiting the rain shed and water wheel. Passing through a vast ground, we entered the “P Kumaraswamy Block”. The first room we went to was the section of hydrochemistry where the employees taught us how they check water quality and how distilled water is brought out.

After that, we visited the microbiology lab where we saw how germs were maintained and we also saw how the laminar air flow chamber worked. Our final site was the open-air, meteorological observatory where we saw many types of equipment to check water level, to check humidity and I also got to see the Stevenson’s Screen, a mechanism to measure temperature.

We then thanked our guide, Mr. Unnikrishna Varyar, and came back to school. Thanks to Fr. John, our teachers, especially Ms. Gigi Thomas and Mr. Zacharias, bus drivers and CWRDM!

“May the water from wells give us prosperity.
May the stored water give us prosperity.
May the rain water give us prosperity.

Atharva Veda