Tamil Nadu is experiencing the biggest drought in 140 years. With water becoming increasingly a scarce commodity, the onus is on everyone to save every possible drop of it.

BCCL

But how? According to Tamil Nadu Co-operatives Minister Sellur K Raju one way to do it is by making sure that the water doesn't get evaporated! So Mr Raju got this brilliant idea and decided to put that into practice. On Friday he took a large group of journalists to Vaigai dam in Madurai.

BCCL

Only after reaching there he disclosed his plan - to cover the entire dam surface with thermocol sheets to prevent the water from evaporating.

According to the minister, the method of using thermocol sheets to reduce evaporation has been tried in foreign countries and private water bodies.

But the minister's plan fell flat.

With the high-velocity wind in the dam, the thermocol sheets attached with ordinary sticky tape quickly disintegrated and floated to every corner of the waterbody before washing up ashore.

BCCL

This happened even before the people who were tasked to deploy the sheets on the surface came back!

BCCL

An embarrassed minister himself tried putting them back on the water, but ended up reducing the thermocol into pieces.

BCCL

The minister's Rs 10 lakhs project instead of saving water, has ended up polluting the water body. He now says it was done on an experimental basis.