Rotary Pune Shivajinagar – RID 3131 undertakes Defective Tap Replacement to save water in Kelewadi Slums Pune region has received 40% less rainfall this year. Lot of initiatives have been undertaken by Rotarians to Save and conserve water. We have several thousands of Defective leaking Taps in public places in slums where every day from a tap over 500 litres of water gets wasted. One defective leaking tap means annually 20,000 literes of wastage of water. If replaced 1 tap can save so much water. Rotary Club of Pune Shivajingar has an Interact club in Madhyamik Prashala Kothrud which is surrounded by 3 large slums. This school has 600 children (all coming from slum areas). Rtn Makrand Tillu and Club President Gauri Shikarpur initially created awareness of Tap Replacement and its need amongst the Interact members (school children) a month back. Impressed with the concept , children went around in the surrounding community and identified 172 defective taps in the slum area. Wasted water was also creating health hazards as it was resulting in forming a pond (full of dirt and leading to attracting mosquitoes thereby spreading many diseases. On 23rd December 2015 “Tap Replacement Rally” was organized and it was lead by Club President Gauri Shikarpur, District Director Makrand Tillu ,PDG Dr Deepak Shikarpur, Club Secretary Sanjeev Choudhari, Youth Director Ajay Godbole , Ann Nirupama Gokhale and Ann Meena Choudhari. 300 children from Interact club participated in the rally. Rally started at 8 am to spread the awareness amongst the slum dwellers on why. In next 48 hour taps are getting replaced (free of charge). All defective 172 taps will be replaced in course of the day . This initiative means saving of 5 lac liters of water (which otherwise would have got wasted). Rotary Club of Pune Shivajinagar created a Sustaining Impact with a Positive Step to REDUCE WATER WASTAGE! NEED: Drinking Water problems has become a critical and important issue for local Pune community. With a sudden jump in population at Pune, the cIty's utility infrastructure for providing drinking water has been over stretched and stressed. While the affording population in city has awareness and resources to take timely measures, the economically challenged section of society - mainly residing in slums and hutments do suffer resulting into conflicts. Major factor is unawareness of small timely actions they can take to conserve water from getting wasted from leaking water taps within houses as well as in common places. This not only results into making water resource more scarce but also gives rise to clogging of leaking water giving rise to breeding grounds for malaria / dengue carrying mosquitos and flies. SOLUTION & ACTIONS: Rotary Club of Pune Shivajinagar decided to attack the problem with awareness drive, plumbing skill development and on-field actions. The club has been working with and supporting Madhyamik School ( primary as well as secondary school ) situated in a large slum area of Kalewadi. Majority of school students come from families who are working as unskilled / semi-skilled laborers. Rotary Club of Pune Shivajinagar motivated and requested students to identify and list the leaking taps from their own / neighbouring households / common places. This count was 172 leaking taps. Rotary Club of Pune Shivajinagar Rotary Club of Pune Shivajinagar team then organized a plumber who demonstrated to students on how to stop the leak an how to replace a non-repairable leaking tap. Principal and teachers of the school motivated students and a rally with 600 interactors and other student participation was conducted thru the slums amd all the 172 leaking taps were replaced with the help from on the spot donations from Rotary Club members. IMPACT BENEFITED OVER 50000 COMMUNITY MEMBERs ALMOST 5 lakhs LITRES of DRINKING WATER SAVED / YEAR INCREASED AWARENESS AMONGST YOUNG AND ADULTS PARTICIPATION BY INTERACT CLUB, SCHOOL TEACHERS, ROTARY MEMBERS & COMMUNITY CONSERVATION OF SCARE RESOURCE HELPED IN PREVENTION OF DISEASE e,g, MALARIA DENGUE REDUCES POTENTIAL CONFLICTs ARISING DUE TO WATER SCARCITY IMPROVEMENT OF ROTARY'S PUBLIC IMAGE IN COMMUNITY This success of this project, motivating and snowballing effect. Many clubs undertook similar drives in their neighbouring communities .Today over 31000 students from 735 schools with the help of Rotary CLubs from RID 3131 have successfully replaced about 500 taps resulting into much bigger impact This project was reported at The Rotary NEWs and was much appreciated by Rotary Community.