US based EcoSikh backs water conservation efforts in India

EcoSikh, a Washington based organization, has launched a water conservation programme in India's Punjab state amid reports of severe groundwater depletion there and other parts of Northern India

EcoSikh's Punjab team is actively working to teach locals about how and why they should conserve water and live in harmony with the Earth, it said.

The group has also asked the Punjabi diaspora to relay environmentally-friendly practices to their counterparts in India by teaching them how to farm plants that use less groundwater.

CBS News' 60 Minutes programme last week highlighted with satellite images how Punjab and rest of India are losing groundwater at an alarming rate posing an impending disaster.

"The evidence is credible that the food basket of India is in serious danger and this issue should be treated with urgency and with immediate action by the state and central governments," EcoSikh President Rajwant Singh said.

"When people in Punjab do not have access to water because it is being overused, the results will be disastrous," said India Project Manager, Ravneet Singh.

In the US too, California is facing its fourth year of summer droughts, which has forced residents to take major steps to conserve water, such as not irrigating their land and taking shorter showers, Eco Sikh noted.

Like in Punjab, Californian farmers must find new ways to conserve water, or else face major water droughts that will leave their plots of land like deserts, said Eco Sikh's US programme manager, Sumeet Kaur.