Plumbing fraternity in India celebrated the first World Plumbing Day, with great enthusiasm and fervour. Several activities took place across the country and the credit goes to an aggressive campaign of IPA, for creating much-needed awareness about better plumbing practices and its pivotal role in better health, hygiene and environment besides better management of energy and of course, water!

The initiatives / activities of IPA can be broadly classified into two parts i.e. activities organized at the national level and the activities, organized at the regional level. Activities undertaken at the central level were –

• March 2010 issue of IPA’s official publication - Indian Plumbing Today (IPT) was devoted to World Plumbing Day and 5000 additional copies were printed and distributed amongst the building service and industry professionals to spread awareness about the cause.
• 5,000 posters on World Plumbing Day were printed and displayed at strategic locations / project sites / offices of consultants / contractors / educational institutes.
• Thousands of especially designed e-mailers about World Plumbing Day celebration were sent by the members of IPA.
• Plumbing product manufacturers released special advertisement with World Plumbing Day logo, in IPT as well as other publications.
• Specially designed stickers with World Plumbing Day logo and short message were also distributed by IPA, for spreading awareness about the Day.

As a part of its multi-pronged approach, IPA had also planned various activities through its eleven chapters, spread across the country. All the members of IPA also promoted this benevolent cause in a very aggressive manner in order to spread the much-needed awareness about better plumbing amongst construction industry. Following programmes were conducted at regional level –

• Hon’ble Chief Minister of the state of Rajasthan – Mr. Ashok Gehlot unveiled special posters propagating the message to ‘Save Water’ on 10th March 2010. These posters were distributed amongst the professionals and also the masses, in order to spread awareness.
• Hon’ble Minister for Medical Education of Karnataka - Mr. Ramachandra Gowda presided over as Chief Guest at the seminar organized by IPA Bangalore Chapter. He addressed the audience on importance of water conservation, ancient drainage systems and dual-piping systems for drainage.
• Dr Yoganand Shastri, Hon’ble Speaker of Delhi Legislative Assembly was Chief Guest of the seminar organized by Delhi Chapter. He talked about the role of plumbers in creating a hygienic the surrounding.
• The first citizen of Kolkata – Mr. Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya, also participated in the World Plumbing Day celebrations at the seminar organized by IPA Kolkata Chapter. He appreciated the initiative taken by IPA in creating awareness in the society about the contribution of plumbing in maintaining general health of masses.
• Dr. Mala Rao, Director of Indian Institute of Public Health participated as Chief Guest at the seminar organized by IPA Hyderabad Chapter. She delivered a very interesting and thought-provoking lecture on the need for sanitation and pure drinking water in downtrodden masses of India and the need for organisations like the IPA to come forward and propagate the importance of plumbing for overall development of health and hygiene.
• Dr. Manoj Chakraborty, Deputy Director & Head of Division of Pathophysiology, National Institute of Cholera & Enteric Diseases, who delivered a candid presentation on various kinds of water-borne diseases and importance of properly designed plumbing system to control such deadly threats, during the seminar at Kolkata.
• Mr. Nilangshu Bhushan Basu, Principal Chief Engineer of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation talked about importance of availability of potable water. He shared his experience on revamping the city drainage system by rehabilitating century-old brick sewers, through desilting and Glass Reinforced Plastic (GRP) structural liners.
• Since the city of Mumbai is suffering from acute water crisis, IPA Mumbai Chapter invited Mr. Dinesh M. Gondalia, Dy. Municipal Commissioner - Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM) to share his views on prevalent water shortage, and ways to minimize the wastage.
• IPA Mumbai Chapter also invited Mrs. Suprabha Marathe, Executive Engineer of Rainwater Harvesting Cell of Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM), who made an interesting presentation on Rainwater Harvesting and the scope for water harnessing.
• Pune Chapter of IPA had invited Dr. Anil Sahasrabudhe, Director of College of Engineering Pune (CoEP) to its seminar who elaborated on the importance of plumbing.
• IPA Pune Chapter had also invited Mr. Pramod Nirbhavane, Superintendent Engineer of Pune Municipal Corporation, who enlightened the audience about importance of plumbing in city planning and the need for trained plumbing professionals.
• Mrs. Purva Keskar, a LEED certified architect of Pune region made an informative presentation on aspects of green buildings and its importance during the seminar held under the aegis of IPA Pune Chapter.
• Kerala Chapter of IPA had organized a seminar on Green Plumbing wherein they had invited Ar. B R Ajit, Chairman – Indian Green Building Council, Kochi who talked about importance of plumbing, in day-to-day life.
• Kerala Chapter had also invited Ar. Lalichan Zacharias, Chairman – Indian Institute of Architects – Kerala, who underlined the vital role a plumber in the society and how disregard to this trade, affects the health of society.
• Ar. Yeshwant Ramamurthy, a well-known architect and interior designer of Hyderabad also gave a very informative lecture on the Importance of Plumbing in the present day covering evolution of plumbing to latest technologically designed plumbing products available in the market.
• Mr. H V Vasavada, Director (Technical) - Benchmark Agencies Pvt. Ltd., Ahmedabad talked on ‘Provocative Plumbing’, highlighting the need for better plumbing during the seminar organized by IPA Gujarat Chapter. He explained various ways and means that can be adopted for improving plumbing practices.
• The seminar organized by Gujarat Chapter also had a presentation by Mr. Habil Attarwala, Director - Furaat Earth Pvt. Ltd., which has a long standing experience of installing Rainwater Harvesting Systems. He shared his views on efficient systems of groundwater recharge and reuse of rain water through a presentation on “Rainwater Harvesting System”.
• Mr. John Joseph, Managing Director of John Mech-El Technologies, made a presentation, which touched upon a wide spectrum of topics like basic sources of water, uses for water covering domestic / industrial / agricultural, reasons for the dwindling water resources due to population, over exploitation, misuse and pollution. He also suggested various methods of reducing water consumption. He also talked about eco-friendly plumbing engineering and products.
• To spread awareness about better plumbing practices and also about the World Plumbing Day, Coimbatore Chapter of IPA had put up 85 banners with social messages at 55 locations in and around the city and two mega hoardings at two prominent locations in the city.
• Stickers & handbills with water and energy saving tips were distributed to 3000 walkers on 11th March morning by members & Office Bearers of IPA Coimbatore Chapter. In addition, 15,000 pictorial handbills with 12 water and energy saving tips were distributed to students from class 6 to 9 in ten schools of Coimbatore.
• Bangalore Chapter of IPA had also arranged to display World Plumbing Day posters at various project sites, offices of consultants and institutions across the city of Bangalore to propagate importance of the Day.
• Jaipur Chapter of IPA had organized a unique way of propagating World Plumbing Day by way of street-plays, which were organized at 10 different locations in the city of Jaipur.
• Jaipur Chapter also tied-up with one of the schools in the city and organized a Poster Competition, which was a huge success with the participation of more than 60 students.
• 10 Banners with the World Plumbing Day logo and its message were displayed at 10 strategic locations in the city of Jaipur, to spread awareness about World Plumbing Day.
• IPA Gujarat Chapter aired especially conceived message on FM Radio, throughout the day on 11th March 2010.
• IPA Kerala Chapter brought out a Special supplement in popular daily, The Hindu on World Plumbing Day.
• Leading and enlightened manufacturers like Grundfos, DP Pumps, Finolex, Viega, A O Smith, ITT, Pentair Water, WILO, Hepco and Jain Irrigation joined the celebration of World Plumbing Day by sponsoring various activities.

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For detailed reports on each activity and images, visit the website www.indianplumbing.org

Drawing competition held at one of the city schools

Ar. Yeshwant Ramamurthy