Water Conservation Week is being marked by VIT with a week-long hosting of ‘Ideathon’ beginning Monday, with a mela showcasing ideas of students together with quizzes, debates, poster-presentations, painting competitions all on the theme of the need to conserve water.

A ‘pathway presentation of models’ by students of various schools in the city will also be showcased. At the end of the week, students will hold a ‘backthon’ (walking backwards) in the campus arena to raise awareness on water conservation.

Inaugurating the programme, VIT chancellor G Viswanathan recalled how the groundwater levels in the university had deteriorated in the past 30 years. “When we laid the foundation in 1985, the water table was just five-feet deep. Now it has plummeted to more than 50 feet below.”