India Water Week 2015 ; Hamara Jal – Hamara Jeewan Initiative

The theme of the water week is “Water Management for Sustainable Development”. India Water Week-2015 will address the issues of sustainability of water resources development and management in line with Sustainable Development Goals 2015 being finalized by UN.

Conceptualized and organised for the first time in 2012, the India Water Week is an annual forum where the Ministry of Water Resources discusses and plans with eminent stakeholders through seminars, exhibitions and sessions to build public awareness to get support to implement key strategies for conservation, preservation and optimum use of available water.

Highlights of India Water week – 2015

• Year 2015-16 will be celebrated as ‘Jal Kranti Varsh’ across the country. Each district  will strive to conserve water.

• India has more than 18% of the world’s population, but has only 4% of world’s renewable water resources. There are further limits on utilizable quantities of water owing to uneven distribution of water over time and space. With  growing population and rising needs of a fast developing nation as well as the given indication of the impact of climate change, availability of utilizable water will be under further strain in future with the possibility of deepening water conflicts among different user groups.

• There is wide variation in water availability across various river basins. While Ganga and Brahmaputra river basins are well endowed with water, the basins in peninsular India are relatively water scarce . Most of the them have already reached the stage of full development. Inter linking of rivers is conceived for transfer of water from surplus basins to deficit basins. This will help in augmenting storage capacity.  Inter-linking of rivers will help in diverting the surplus water of rivers to drought prone areas. There is considerable progress in Ken- Betwa project, Yamuna – Sarda(Mahakali) project.

• There is a need to  adopt new techniques of irrigation based on less usage of water – for example,  drip irrigation.

• Hamara Jal – Hamara Jeewan initiative will be observed in every district of the country. It is an  initiative to engage scientists, engineers, water communities, PRIs, other stakeholders and NGOs to address the issues of water resources planning at the local level and to generate awareness regarding need for water conservation. Participation from school students will be an integral part of the programme for sensitizing the next generation for water conservation. This will also spread awareness regarding need to conserve water in the light of growing water scarcity. Each district would prepare its profile, and indicate its uses, constraints, local solutions to prepare a road-map for managing water resources. See, this is a bottom up approach. Centre is not using a one- size fits all policy, and imposing one plan on all districts.
• This initiative is of great significance. Why? There is a growing demand of water in domestic and industrial sectors due to population growth and an increased emphasis on manufacturing for overall economic development. Judicial usage of resources in imperative.

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