Rajasthan government is looking into Maharashtra’s Jalyukt Shivar Abhiyan, which aims at water conservation in drought-prone districts, and trying to replicate it in the state.
The ‘Abhiyan’ is the flagship programme of Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis. It focusses on small and medium water conservation projects, and aims to make 25,000 villages immune to the effects of drought in the next five years.
According to THE INDIAN EXPRESS, sources say, a team of officials, in Rajasthan, on the order of Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje went to Rajasthan last week to study the ongoing project.
Magasaysay award winner and water management expert Rajendra Singh, after Maharashtra, had taken up the matter with the Rajasthan government suggested to the Rajasthan government to incorporate a similar water conservation project in the state.
A senior official told THE INDIAN EXPRESS, “The Rajasthan government has displayed their keenness to replicate the same water conservation projects in districts which are reeling under severe water scarcity in Rajasthan.”
Currently 1,19,877 works are under way across 6,002 villages in Maharashtra. Almost 85,000 works are completed.
Even the contribution by villagers have crossed Rs 250 crore. The project which was launched in March will be extended to other villages in phases. State government has allocated Rs 1,000 crore for the work, THE INDIAN EXPRESS reported.
The projects include cement and nulla bunds, compartment bunding, ponds, river widening and deeping,constructing barages along the dams and channelising water through canals to irrigate agricultural land.
The revival of old structures which have been lying abandoned for five decades and could be transformed as potential water storing bodies are also high on the agenda.