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)
Princely' private ponds
The 'Apna Talab Abhiyaan' programme promotes the building of private talabs on peoples' lands to help improve groundwater recharge in Bundelkhand. Posted on 07 Mar, 2014 10:14 AM

Charkhari, a princely state of India in the colonial period was once a beautiful settlement founded by Saurabh Singh Bundela, a Rajput King. Acceded to India post-Independence, the town is now located in Mahoba, Uttar Pradesh. The place was home to intricate water management systems in the past.

A talab in the fort city of Charkhari
Want to build a toilet?
Learn about the importance of sanitation and follow the step-by-step instructions in this easy-to-use, hands-on manual issued by the Government of Jharkhand to help build toilets. Posted on 24 Feb, 2014 04:23 PM

The Government of Jharkhand has published a technical document in order to encourage the construction and usage of toilets in the state of Jharkhand. The manual begins with an introduction to Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan (NBA), a government programme to tackle open defecation in rural India.

The need for toilets (Source: Sourabh Phadke)
New law to save the Ganga
Policy matters this week: PMO orders framing of draft legislation to protect the Ganga; Narmada-Kshipra river linking scheme passes the test; World Bank to support low-income states. Posted on 17 Feb, 2014 02:22 PM

PMO approves law to protect Ganga river

Ganga river in Haridwar (Source: Anoop Negi)
Sikkim achieves 100% sanitation under Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan scheme
News this week: Sikkim achieves 100% sanitation; Govt has only 2 months to cover 54.4% of rural India in its drinking water scheme; Maharashtra village gets community rights over dam reservoir. Posted on 17 Feb, 2014 02:21 PM

Sikkim achieves 100% sanitation

Sustainable sanitation
The great Indian toilet tracker!
Does rural India have enough toilets? Which state has built the most toilets and which state is still backed up? Our visualisations of the Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan's data demystify it all! Posted on 16 Feb, 2014 10:57 PM

Women patiently wait for the sun to go down, to squat in open fields. Young children do so unabashedly on the roads under the open skies. Well into our 67th year of independence, the sanitation situation hasn't changed much in villages and towns across the nation.

Rural sanitation scheme - Progress & Performance
A new vision for Himalayan streams
Fish found in streams and rivers are a source of food to about 40% of the households in parts of the Himalayas. Including fisheries in local watershed management is crucial. Posted on 16 Feb, 2014 10:54 PM

Watershed management, which is an integrated set of soil and water conservation techniques that retain runoff and so increase water availability, can provide an environment for fisheries development for food or trade.

Fish harvested from a pond in Doon Valley
If you don't clean our shit, then who will?
Manual scavenging continues to exist in India even 67 years after Independence. Is it due to the lack of laws, lack of alternatives or lack of will? Posted on 16 Feb, 2014 10:53 PM

"Swaraj is a meaningless term, if we desire to keep a fifth of India under perpetual subjection, and deliberately deny to them the fruits of national culture". - Mahatma Gandhi

A manual scavenger at work (Source:Flickr Commons)
More people power equals more progress
Cuttack, in Odisha, overcame the bane of open defecation, dirty water and unclean surroundings thanks to participation and involvement by the locals. The 'Silver City' is now truer to its name. Posted on 20 Jan, 2014 09:42 AM

Clean surroundings, clean water and a clean toilet – as much as Cuttack, in Odisha is a thriving centre of trade and commerce, it lacked these three basic necessities. An exploratory survey was conducted in 2009 to understand why the city hadn't reached a better state of cleanliness.

Community based management (Source: NFI)
Pesticide 'thali'
A 2010 study by Consumer Voice found that Delhi's fruits and vegetables contain high levels of pesticide residue. Despite the high court getting involved, not much has changed since. Posted on 20 Jan, 2014 09:39 AM

One doesn't have to look far to find pesticide contamination in food and water in India.

Toxins are used as ripening agents in vegetables
Which way will the water flow?
The 12th Five Year Plan recognises that our current methods of water management have led to inequity. It suggests an approach that involves more input from non-government sources. Posted on 15 Jan, 2014 11:07 PM

In the 60-odd years since we began managing our own resources, we have managed to throttle and poison all our rivers, suck our groundwater resources nearly dry and shave our forests bald. This is despite a great deal of effort, time, thought and resources that have gone into this 'management'.

Ramaswamy Iyer, former Secretary Water Resources
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