Читать книгу Pollutants and Water Management - Группа авторов - Страница 26

Recently, the Indian government formed the Ministry of Jal Shakti in May 2019 by merging two ministries: the Ministry of Water Resources, River Development, and Ganga Rejuvenation and the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation. The Government of India had also established the National Water Mission, which is one of the eight National Missions under the National Action Plan on Climate Change 2008. Now, National Water Mission is operating under the Ministry of Jal Shakti and the main objective is “conservation of water, minimizing wastage and ensuring its more equitable distribution both across and within States through integrated water resources development and management.” The National Water Mission is working towards five goals as follows:

1 Building a comprehensive water database in the public domain and an assessment of the impact of climate change on water resources

2 Promotion of citizen and state actions for water conservation, augmentation, and preservation

3 Focused attention to vulnerable areas including overexploited areas

4 Increasing water use efficiency by 20%

5 Promotion of basin level integrated water resource management

In the 12th five‐year plan (2012–2017) of India, more emphasis has been given on aquifer mapping, watershed development, and the involvement of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in developing irrigation capacity. Previously, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government established a separate ministry on “River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation” to accelerate the development of rivers and approved a 20 000 crores budget to the Namami Ganges scheme for the historical river Ganga. Further, the NDA government made it mandatory that 50% of work under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) 2005 should be for the improvement of water conservation work like the construction of check dams and de‐silting of water bodies. Recently, in the union budget 2016–2017, 60 000 crore rupees for a groundwater recharge project, 259.6 crore rupees for river basin management, and 660.27 crore rupees for water resources management were allocated and particular emphasis was given to the National Rural Drinking Water Program. Several water‐related projects such as rainwater harvesting, artificial groundwater recharge, watershed management, etc. are already being run by central and state governments. Further, a substantial amount has been allocated for groundwater recharge projects in drought‐hit areas to combat the challenges of climate change. The national adaptation fund was established to analyze climate change threats. The government also paid specific attention to arsenic‐affected areas and constructed specially designed new wells for the mitigation of arsenic pollution in groundwater.

The Indian government formed the Ministry of Jal Shakti in May 2019 as the main regulating body of water resources in the country. For improved water quality and quantity of water resources, the Indian government launched several schemes, namely, Namami Ganges, the National Rural Drinking Water Program, the national adaptation fund (for climate change threats), the National Water Mission, etc.