Press Information Bureau

 Temperature may go beyond 45 degrees in certain pockets, but number of such days will be very less. Certain pockets in northern India will have 1 to 2 degree high temperature than normal at times and eastern India will remain cooler. The peninsular region and central India will be near normal.

A summary of major recommendations of Working Group are as follows: -

Funds are released to the States under National Rural Drinking Water Programme (NRDWP) by the Government of India for providing drinking water supply in rural areas covering the rural and tribal areas of the State.

About 30% of rural household’s access piped drinking water from taps. However, full coverage of rural habitations is about 75%.

It covers identified polluted stretches of 39 rivers in 182 towns spread over 20 States. The major rivers covered under the Plan include Ganga, Yamuna, Gomti, Damodar, Satluj, Krishna, Musi, Cauveri and Godavari besides others. Pollution abatement schemes are taken up under the Plan on a cost sharing basis between Centre and States.

The Government has said that the National Water Development Agency (NWDA) under the Ministry of Water Resources (MoWR) has identified 30 inter-state River links (16 under Peninsular Component & 14 under Himalayan Component) for preparation of Feasibility Reports (FRs). Out of these, FRs of 14 links under Peninsular Component and 2 links (Indian Portion) under Himalayan Component have been completed. Giving this information in written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha, present status of interlinking of rivers in the country, Shri Vincent H. Pala, Minister of State for Water Resources, said that the Five inter-state River links under Peninsular Component namely (i) Ken-Betwa, (ii) Parbati-Kalisindh-Chambal, (iii) Damanganga-Pinjal, (iv) Par-Tapi-Narmada & (v) Godavari (Polavaram)-Krishna (Vijayawada) were identified as priority links for building consensus among the concerned states for taking up their Detailed Project Reports (DPRs).

 Giving this information in written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha on the average annual rainfall and rainwater harvesting, Shri Salman Khurshid, Minister of Water Resources, said that rain water is harvested through surface storages and recharge of ground water.The total storage capacity created through major and medium projects is around 225 BCM. The data on quantum of rainwater harvested through groundwater recharging is 433 BCM. Ministry of Water Resources does not maintain the data on quantum of water harvested due to manmade structures separately.It is estimated that the water utilized in 2010 is about 681 BCM.

Of these, as many as 36 reservoirs are having significant hydro-power benefits with installed capacities of more than 60MW each. The combined live storage in these 81 reservoirs at the beginning of monsoon, i.e. June 1, 2010 was 14% of their designed capacity and stood at 60% of designed capacity as on January 27, 2011. The present storage is 137% of last year’s storage and 145% of last 10 years average storage during the same period. Out of these 81 reservoirs there are presently 15 reservoirs where this year’s storage is less than 80 % of the average of previous 10 years and in remaining 66 reservoirs the storage is more than 80% of the average of previous 10 years.

 Addressing a large gathering at Vigyan Bhawan on this occasion in New Delhi, the Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh called upon the states to strengthen the Gram Sabhas for rural empowerment. He said the Ministry of Rural Development and Ministry of Panchayati Raj has jointly chalked out a plan to strengthen the Panchayats. Technical Units will be set up in Gram Panchayats and to improve the managerial efficiency every unit will have a Panchayat Development officer and one Junior Engineer. Focus would be on Left Wing Extremism(LWE) affected districts and the districts where more than Rs.100 crore have been spent under MGNREGA.

 Hitherto the role of the government was that of a service provider, with minimum involvement of the community in the planning process and the implementation activities. With the increase in demand due to public aspirations and decrease of availability of safe water it was considered essential to involve the community in the programme.

To achieve this, there was a paradigm shift and the Framework for implementation of National Rural Drinking Water Programme was revised in 2009. The Department appropriately addressed the soft issues related to facilitating the  active participation of PRIs in the process of planning, implementation and operation of schemes to achieve the goal of long term sustainability. It also ensured that the community gets continuous support and handholding so that they are empowered to take up the role of planning and implementing the systems also in addition to operating and maintaining them.

 The Union Minister of Social Justice & Empowerment Shri Mukul Wasnik recently inaugurated the two-day Consultation Meeting on Eradication of Manual Scavenging and Rehabilitation of Manual Scavengers.Speaking on the occasion, he called upon the States to work towards eradicating the shameful practice of manual scavenging by the end of the 11th plan. He regretted that despite various efforts made by the Central Government and the States, the practice of manual scavenging still exist in some parts of the country. The meeting was organized by the Ministries of Social Justice & Empowerment, Urban Poverty Alleviation and Urban Development.

Shri Wasnik said that we must address rehabilitation of manual scavengers to our utmost capacity.