Government Programmes

Featured Articles
October 22, 2022 Role of MGNREGA in the year after the 2020 lockdown: Survey findings from Bihar, Karnataka, Maharashtra, and Madhya Pradesh
MGNREGA provided income support or security to vulnerable households during the pandemic (Image: UN Women)
July 7, 2022 PMAY needs policy commitment to rehabilitate slums in small and medium cities of Gujarat
Need for legal framework for land rights in small and medium cities of Gujarat under PMAY (Image: Homes in the City)
May 25, 2022 Enabling a culture of data sharing between programs and reuse of data
Participatory programs such as JJM require a large amount of village-level information on water (Image: Arpit Deomurar, FES)
March 15, 2022 World Resources Institute (WRI) India and the C40 Cities network develop Mumbai’s first-ever Climate Action Plan
The MCAP adopts a scientific evidence-based planning approach to mobilize resources and move from planning to implementation of strategic projects (Image: Deepak Gupta, Wikimedia Commons; CC BY-SA 3.0)
February 28, 2022 Gujarat aims to achieve 100 per cent saturation in tap water connection for every household by October 2022 under the Jal Jeevan Mission
The SCALE project implemented in villages in semi arid regions enabled ultra-poor groups in project villages improve their access to drinking water (Image: European Union, Flickr Commons)
February 10, 2022 Budget for sanitation sees a decline
Jal Jeevan Mission has picked up pace after two years (Image: Anita Martinz, Wikimedia Commons,  CC-A-2.0 Generic)
Right to water and sanitation : Water Drops, the Water Aid newsletter
"Water Drops", the WaterAid newsletter focuses on the right to water and sanitation in their recent issue. Posted on 16 Dec, 2009 03:21 PM

The newsletter explores the ways in which national laws, court pronouncements and judgements and international commitments can be interpreted to imply a right to water and sanitation.

Specific articles cover:

-Individual court cases and Supreme Court pronouncements

Letter from Rajendra Singh to Jairam Ramesh to withdraw environmental clearance to Athirappilly project
Letter addressed to Jairam Ramesh by Rajendra SInghji on Athirappilly Issue when he visited the river and the dam site Posted on 14 Dec, 2009 10:27 AM

Please see the letter addressed to Jairam Ramesh by Rajendra SInghji on Athirappilly Issue when he visited the river and the dam site on the 8th December. To read the letter Click Here.

WIO press release on COP 15- Orissa Farmers’ Agenda for the World Leaders attending COP 15
Withdraw your support from polluting industries, invest in organic agriculture and remunerate us at par with the government and corporate employees. Posted on 08 Dec, 2009 03:23 PM

Sambalpur, 7th December 2009 - The Fifteenth Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and Fifth Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (COP 15 and COP/MOP 5) begins today, just a day after the Orissa Legislative Assembly’s current session was wrapped up in a hush half way through.  The otherwise strong and majority government of Orissa has been i

Speakers and presentations at the IWMI : Bharat Sharma speaks on the use of GIS for estimating basin level water productivity
An amalgamation of the presentations and discussions at the IWMI on water productivity Posted on 07 Dec, 2009 02:25 AM

 

bharat

Curious case of Ganga Action Plan
An in depth analysis on the Ganga Action Plan Posted on 04 Dec, 2009 06:40 PM

The news is out. On December 2, 2009, Government of India announced its plans of taking a loan to clean the Ganga. This time around the World Bank is extending Rs $1 billion [Rs 4500 crore] loan to India.

Water Evaluation And Planning(WEAP) in the Indus and Ganges basin
An evaluation on the water evaluation and planning in the Indus and Gangetic basin Posted on 04 Dec, 2009 11:57 AM

This couldn't have been more relevant to the conversation that we are having here.

Need for a comprehensive water database says Dr Anil Singh of ICAR
Details on the workshop on 'Tackling Food and Water crisis in South Asia- Insights from the Indus Ganges basin' Posted on 03 Dec, 2009 07:56 AM

Unrestricted flow, reproduction and redistribution of data has been a great concern with most of the projects and research establishments in India. As we heard the Secretary of Ministry of Water Resources voice his recommendations on the ways to tackle the looming water crisis, and the steps that the ministry is taking towards this, we thought of first putting down the highlights of the talks raw, before we get back to them in a detailed manner.

While we compile together all the presentations and papers, here' s a quick update on the talks from the first day. On the research challenges for improving the use and productivity of natural resources in India, Dr. Anil Singh, Deputy Director General, Natural Resource Management, Indian Council of Agriculture Research had an interesting observation linking fertilizer use with water consumption in the gangetic basin. It is assumed that both of these factors impact the crop productivity and this needs to be explored further.

He suggests:

  • India needs a ground water management policy.
  • The issues discussed in the workshop cut across all the basins in the country and have long term implications.
  • Gangetic Basin is critical for our food security
  • The attempt to reduce the cropping area would be a difficult proposition. We would have to live with it... area under cultivation is poised to increase and we might want to consider technological options like the cultivation of aerobic rice, SRI etc.
  • Another answer is mechanization in the agricultural sector. This may enhance efficiency.
  • We must consider a shift to precision farming as well.

 

Two new publications from the IGB project were released today by the Chief Guest at the workshop, U.N. Panjiar, the Secretary to the Ministry of Water Resources, Government of India. Releasing the reports, Mr. Panjiar presented the government's perception of the present water situation along with some statistical data on the water usage. The challenges of food security and water security are global. Climate change has been an increasing concern too. He observes food security, water secutiry and climate change are closely related. The objective of food security cannot be achieved without water security.

Panjiar

 U.N. Panjiar releasing the IWMI publications on Indus-Gangetic Basin with Bharat Sharma and Madar Samad

Panjiar

 

          Anil Singh

Anil Singh delivering his speech

Mr. Panjiar puts forward the following recommendations, stating that these could possibly help us manage well, the problem of water crisis.

  • A comprehensive water database should be developed.
  • Assessment of impact of climate change on rescources is required.
  • Promotion of citizen and state action for conservation of resources.
  • Focus on overexploited areas.
  • 15% aquifers in country are overexploite and another 15 are critical. We must increase water reuse by 20%.
  • Basin level resource management is essential.
  • Irrigation potential crated and irrigation potential utilized must be to the optimal levels.
  • In agreement with Simon Cook, he emphasizes that efficiency is an important issue.
  • Water, energy and food productivity are closely linked. This relation and interdependence must be explored.
  • Remote Sensing techniques are critical in agriculture and basin management.

 

Government of India has launched a Water Resource Information System and most of the data is being made public under this project! Policy too, is being revised to make most of the data public and it is projected to be launched by the end of current financial year. Launching a National Water Mission of India is also being mulled over. (Read the related documents here)


Stating that it is important to ensure technology transfer to farmers to achieve “more crop per drop” he talks about a project conducted by the ministry in which 5000 demonstrations of relevant farm technologies were given to the farmers. The interim report of this project indicates that use of such technological interventions is important in improving the yield of the crop and improve water efficiency!

Findings of Basin Focal Project on the Indo-Gangetic basin
An article on the river Ganges that seems to be dying due to the glacier being endangered by human impact Posted on 02 Dec, 2009 02:34 PM

No! This title isn't mine. I borrowed it from Mahmoud Darwish's literary work of the same name.

Speakers and presentations of WHSC 2009 day 3 : Ashok Jaitly talks about the policy issues on water conservation
WHSC 2009- Discussions and presentations by various speakers on water policy, rainwater harvesting techniques and Sulabh experience in sanitation Posted on 26 Nov, 2009 03:58 AM

Ashok Jaitly, Water Resources Department, TERI
Policy issues in water conservation

Habil Attarwala, Furaat Earth Ltd., Gujarat

Choice to be made between large scale water projects and decentralized water collection systems,says Ramaswamy Iyer
A talk on the choices between development, dams and water projects Posted on 23 Nov, 2009 01:29 PM

Sometome back, in one of the interviews discussing large dams (with ADB) Ramaswamy Iyer said,

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