NITI Aayog, in its report titled “Composite Water Management Index” published in June 2018, has mentioned that 21 major cities are expected to run out of groundwater by 2020. This is based on the estimates of annual groundwater replenishment and its extraction. However, it does not take into account the groundwater availability in the deeper aquifers.

Practices for efficient and sustainable management of water resources such as conjunctive use of surface water and ground water resources, participatory ground water practices, increasing water use efficiency amongst others need to be promoted on a large scale by involving all the stake-holders to deal with future water demand challenges.

Government of India launched Jal Shakti Abhiyan which is a time bound campaign with a mission mode approach intended to improve water availability including ground water conditions in the water stressed blocks of 256 districts in India. In this regard, teams of officers from Central Government along-with technical officers from Ministry of Jal Shakti were deputed to visit water stressed districts and to work in close collaboration with district level officials to undertake suitable interventions.

Water being a State subject, efforts to conserve and manage ground water is primarily States responsibility. A number of States have done notable work in this regard.  Of these, mention can be made of ‘Mukhyamantri Jal Swavlamban Abhiyan’ in Rajasthan, ‘Jalyukt Shibar’ in Maharashtra, ‘Sujalam Sufalam Abhiyan’ in Gujarat, ‘Mission Kakatiya’ in Telangana, Neeru Chettu’ in Andhra Pradesh among others.

Central Government supports construction of water harvesting and conservation works primarily through Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) and Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana – Watershed Development Component (PMKSY-WDC).

Also, as per Ministry of Rural Development, 19,64,995 water conservation and water harvesting works have been completed in different States under MGNREGS during the period 2014-15 to 2019-20 with cumulative expenditure of Rs 31907.32 Cr as uploaded by the States in Management Information System.

Also, as per Ministry of Rural Development, Department of Land Resources, 6,08,384 water harvesting structures have been created/rejuvenated in different states under PMKSY-WDC component during the period 2014-15 to 2019-20 (upto September 2019). Further, as on 31.10.2019, Rs.17751.75 crore has been released to States as Central share for implementation of Watershed Development Projects.

Water being a State subject, efforts to initiate suitable demand side and supply side interventions including conservation and management of water resources is primarily States’ responsibility. However, steps taken by the Central Government in this regard are at the following URL:

http://mowr.gov.in/sites/default/files/Steps_to_control_water_depletion_Jun2019.pdf.

This information was given by Union Minister of State for Jal Shakti & Social Justice and Empowerment,  Shri Rattan Lal Kataria in a written reply in Rajya Sabha today.

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