(a) whether the Government has taken any initiatives for setting up of Jal Shakti Kendras and GIS mapping of water bodies across the country; and
(b) if so, the details thereof?
(a) whether the Government has taken any initiatives for setting up of Jal Shakti Kendras and GIS mapping of water bodies across the country; and
(b) if so, the details thereof?
THE MINISTER OF STATE FOR JAL SHAKTI
(SHRI BISHWESWAR TUDU)
(a) & (b) Keeping in view the presence of multiple agencies for handling water in the state governments and limited availability of technical knowledge on appropriate Rain Water Harvesting Structure (RWHS) at local level, States Governments including the District Magistrates (DMs) have been requested to set-up “Jal Shakti Kendras” in every district as a part of Jal Shakti Abhiyan: Catch the Rain (JSA:CTR) campaign. These Jal Shakti Kendras are set up to work as “knowledge centres” for disseminating information related to water conservation techniques and to provide technical guidance to people. As per data available on portal for JSA:CTR, so far 264 Jal Shakti Kendras have been set up in various states.
Ministry of Jal Shakti has also launched the first Census of water bodies in convergence with the Sixth round of Minor Irrigation Census (Reference year 2017-18) with the objective of census of water bodies and to develop a national database of all water bodies in the country.
Under India-WRIS project, around 7.99 lakh water bodies of size more than 0.01 ha. was mapped using satellite imageries of 2009-10 and made available online on the India-WRIS portal. Using satellite imagery, National Remote Sensing Centre has also been mapping nationwide water bodies at regular intervals of time depending on their size.
Under the Jal Shakti Abhiyan: Catch the Rain campaign implemented by the National Water Mission, Ministry of Jal Shakti, the District Magistrates/Collectors have been asked to enumerate with the help of old revenue records and using remote sensing images from NRSA and GIS mapping technology all existing water-bodies/ water harvesting structures, mark their boundaries, geo-tag them, integrate available data from NIC-MI census, National Water Informatics Centre (NWIC), State Water Resources Information systems and using the data for preparing Scientific Water Conservation plans. NWM has prepared guidelines for preparation of GIS based water conservation plans and inventory of water bodies of districts and forwarded it to all the districts for its implementation.
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