PrashantNews
Former Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik’s tryst with hockey is well-known after India won its second consecutive Olympic bronze at Paris.
But nurturing hockey was not the only achievement of the old boy of the Doon School during his long tenure as Chief Minister in the eastern state. One success story that remained mostly under wraps was the water conservation in Odisha which made exemplary strides during the last few years under his leadership.
And now in the category of Best State for the 5th National Water Awards 2023, the first prize has been conferred upon Odisha. Uttar Pradesh has secured the second position with Gujarat and Puducherry jointly coming third. President Droupadi Murmu will confer the awards on Oct 22 at Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhi.
The official data also confirmed why Odisha is no 1 in water conservation. About 53,000 water conservation and rain water harvesting structures, and 10,800 reuse and recharge structures have been created as well as renovation of 11,000 of traditional water bodies, 68,700 watershed development, and 21,000 waste water treatment plants has been completed in the state.
Renovation of about 1,800 km of drainage channel has resulted in retrieval of around 39,000 hectares of agriculture land from water logging. Over 90,900 ha of irrigated area has been transformed from conventional to micro irrigation of sprinkler and drip systems benefiting about 87000 farmers, the official data showed.
Nine crore intensive afforestation has been completed. Mukshyamantri Adibandha Tiari Yojana launched by Navin Babu has been implemented for development of check dams and minor irrigation.
Major strides have been made by the State particularly in the last year, i.e., 2023.
Another leader that made his mark for water conservation is Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityananth under whose guidance the state made significant strides under Jal Jeevan Mission in the last few years, wherein over 17,900 villages have been saturated with tap water and 7,200 villages have been Har Ghar Jal certified benefiting over 1.91 crore households constituting 72.78% of the total rural houses in UP.
To mitigate inflow of polluted water into Ganga, the State has built 133 Sewage Treatment Plants (STPs) with a combined capacity of 4100 MLD. 06 Ganga Biodiversity Parks are being established in the state. 14,679 Amrit Sarovars have been completed. Major strides in this regard have been made in the last year (2023). Further, under the Jal Shakti Abhiyan campaign (phase-IV) in the year 2023, over 55,400 intensive water conservation and rainwater harvesting initiatives, renovation of 21,200 traditional water bodies and the construction of 39,600 recharge structures/new ponds have been completed. Installation of Rooftop rainwater harvesting structures on 31,300 government and semi government buildings have been completed. Besides around 1,450 other rain water recharge structures and 26,700 water conservation structures have been built and 21,200 traditional water bodies have been restored.
Water conservation is the need of hour. Uttrakhand government should set special task force to work out various schemes to conserve water. Uttrakhand has plenty of water resources, not only Ganga and Yamuna but there are also small permanent and seasonal small rivers. Earlier also I have written about need to conserve plenty of flood water in the monsoon season. Uttrakhand has many seasonal rivers with very broad front. These fronts can be used to conserve monsoon water and convert them in lakes. This will attract more tourists and generate lots of employment.
Serious thoughts are required to conserve water. We don’t want any more Chennai, Bengaluru and Cape Town like water crises in future.
Good suggestion