By Our Staff Reporter
Dehradun, 10 Sep: Chief Secretary Radha Raturi today issued instructions to set up a State Level Steering Committee under Atal Bhujal Yojana to oversee water budgeting and implementation of the scheme at the local level in the three water-scarce districts of the state, namely Champawat, Haridwar and Udham Singh Nagar. She issued these instructions during a meeting chaired by her on the Atal Bhujal Yoajana.
She stated that the committee will coordinate groundwater management among various state agencies.
Raturi also directed the officials to include Drinking Water and Sanitation, Urban Development, Panchayati Raj, Irrigation, Rural Development Department and Spring and River Rejuvenation Authority (SARRA) in the committee while making the Minor Irrigation Department, the nodal department for this purpose. She directed the committee to regularly review the progress of the scheme on a monthly basis. The Chief Secretary instructed the nodal department to nominate master trainers at the level of local bodies and take necessary action for their training. These master trainers will be required to provide assistance in making water plans and budgeting.
Raturi has also ordered inclusion of the activities of ‘Catch the Rain’, Amrit Sarovar, Spring and River Rejuvenation Authority (SARRA) under Atal Bhujal Yojana in water-scarce districts Champawat, Haridwar and Udham Singh Nagar. Raturi stated that the main objective of this scheme is to improve sustainable groundwater management through community leadership and participation by convergence between various central and state schemes currently being run as well as to change the mindset at the grassroots level. She said that work should be done to bring about behavioural change at the community level through awareness programmes and capacity building to promote sustainable groundwater management.
She also stressed on active participation of communities and panchayats in various activities in the districts such as formation/strengthening of Water User Association, monitoring and dissemination of groundwater data as well as for preparation of water budget and gram panchayat-wise water security plans (WSP).
The Chief Secretary stated that these plans will be prepared with community participation and the data used in the plan will be disseminated to the entire community. Apart from this, equipment like Digital Water Level Recorder (DWLR), Water Level Sounder, Rain Gauge, Water Flow Meters will be installed to improve water related data. In addition, the Union Government will also install various Real Time Data Acquisition Systems (RTDAS) for both surface and ground water under the National Hydrology Project.
Under the Atal Bhujal Yojana of Government of India, participation of women in water budget and water security plan exercise in Panchayat level has been kept at 33 percent. The existing Gram Jal and Sanitation Committee has been expanded in each Gram Panchayat and their cooperation is being taken in this programme. Three water-stressed districts of Uttarakhand state, Haridwar, Udham Singh Nagar and Champawat have also been listed under the scheme.
Those who were present at the meeting included Secretary Shailesh Bagoli, and senior officials from all related departments.
