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Source: The post is based on the article “First Ever Census on Water Bodies in India” published in PIB on 24th April 2023
What is the News?
The Ministry of Jal Shakti has released the report of the first census of water bodies.
What is the Census of water bodies?
Note: The census was launched under the centrally sponsored scheme, “Irrigation Census” in convergence with the 6th Minor Irrigation Census in order to have a comprehensive national database of all water bodies.
What are the other key findings of the first-ever Census of water bodies?
Use of water bodies: A major proportion of water bodies i.e 83.7% are in use whereas the remaining 16.3% are not in use on account of drying up, construction, siltation, destruction beyond repair, salinity and other reasons.
– Most of the water bodies are used in pisciculture, followed by irrigation, groundwater recharge and domestic/drinking purposes.
– Top five States wherein major use of water bodies is in pisciculture are West Bengal, Assam, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh;
– Top five States, wherein the major use of water bodies is in irrigation, are Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, West Bengal and Gujarat.
Owned by: 55.2% of water bodies are owned by private entities whereas 44.8% of water bodies are in the domain of public ownership.
Natural vs manmade: 78% of enumerated water bodies are man-made whereas the remaining 22% are natural water bodies.
Located in: Among all water bodies, 9.6% are located in Tribal areas, 8.8% in Flood prone areas,7.2 % under Drought Prone Area Programme (DPAP), 2.0 % in Naxal affected areas, 0.7% under Desert Development Programme(DDP) and remaining 71.7% water bodies are located in other areas.
