When in Rome, do as the Romans do.

Varanasi is the holy city, and prayers and rituals are an intrinsic part of the culture.

Ancient mythology has it that devotees offered water to calm down an angry Lord Shiva. This offering of water is called “Jaldaan” (donating water). Our campaign message – “if there’s no water, what will you offer to the gods”. Through this, we used a deep seated religious custom as a pivot to awaken people to reality.

MAKING WATER EVERYONE’S BUSINESS:Through 60,000 square centimeters of editorial content, we brought the water agenda into public sphere.

REUSING WATER WASTED BY WATER PURIFIERS:Buckets distributed to 20,000 homes with water purifiers to reuse water, while another 15,000 homes voluntarily participated and saved 958 mn litres water/year

PROMOTING GROUND WATER RECHARGE:We helped remove 1,00,000 square metres of concrete from open areas, allowing 60 mn litres of rainwater to seep through and recharge groundwater.

INSTALLING RAINWATER HARVESTING SYSTEMS:City administration ordered installation of rainwater harvesting systems at 170 parks, and issued notices to house owners and all government buildings to install systems. Already,273 homes and establishments installed rainwater harvesting systems, saving over 36000 litres of water/year.

CHANGE AGENTS TO EVANGELISE THE CAUSE:We created a “Jaldaan Club”of 3000 members who organized 245 meetings to encourage others.

ALARMS ON OVERHEAD TANKS:Alarms installed on overhead tanks in 2000 homes which would save about 73 mn litres/year

AFFIRMATIVE ACTION BY GOVERNMENT:

1. Commissioned a project report for creating a new water supply infrastructure worth INR 5.5bn

2. Discarded a proposal for 32 new tubewells that could potentially pump 32 bn litres of groundwater annually. This budget’s been diverted to cleaning river water for drinking purposes

3. Prevention of groundwater contamination through anaerobic methods is being undertaken

WINNING BIG FOR THE BRAND:

As per the recently released Indian Readership Survey 2017, Dainik Jagran was ranked the No.1 newspaper in Varanasi with a Total Readership of 4,24,000

The campaign not only saved billions of litres of water, but importantly, worked towards igniting “water consciousness” amongst citizens.