New measure to combat water crisis

The state government has come up with an integrated, micro-level strategy to avoid a similar water crisis in the state in near future. It has introduced the Mukhyamantri Rural Drinking Water Programme (MRDWP), with an agenda to provide sufficient drinking water to villages and to build a sustainable water management scheme in each village. The programme is slated to last 24 months and will cost the government approximately Rs 2,000 crore from 2016-2020.

The programme is an extension of National Rural Drinking Water Programme (NRDWP) launched in 2009-10 and looks forward to cover the 10,06,339 villages of the state suffering from water crisis.

Planned in three parts, the MRDWP is slated to be completed in around 24 months and it intends to provide at least 40 litres of drinking water to every individual every day.

The first part of MRDWP focuses on locating villages that are in dire need of a systematic water providing mechanism. The local bodies and implementing authorities under the state water resources department are also slated to locate villages, covered in the NRDWP schemes which failed or could not be fulfilled due to various reasons.

Under the programme, the officials are supposed to repair and rejuvenate the existing schemes, which were to be implemented at the villages, rather than planning a new system.

About Rs 100 crore is allotted for the rebuilding of existing schemes available at the villages.

The government is also focusing on building the groundwater reserves, which was considered as one of the major issues by the water conservationists across the nation. Local bodies are slated to create groundwater reservoirs in villages and conduct yield tests before monsoons to check for their sustainability and file a report. In the next phase, the groundwater reservoirs are to be connected to the tankers of the village through a pumping system.

The final stage would include providing connection to every household of the village to ensure that the system is sustainable.