IEP CHANDIGARH JULY 17, 2022
In a bid to ensure community participation at large in the Atal Bhujal Yojana, Haryana Government has now planned to adopt aggressive and effective IEC strategies to spread mass awareness about declining groundwater levels in the State.
This was stated by Project Director, Atal Bhujal Yojana Sh. Satbir Singh Kadian while presiding over a review meeting regarding the progress of this ongoing project in Haryana held at Irrigation and Water Resources (I&WR) Department, Panchkula.
Sh. Satbir Singh Kadian said that the Atal Bhujal Yojana is a groundwater management scheme launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the 95th birth anniversary of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee on 25 December 2019.
The purpose of the scheme is to improve groundwater management in seven states of India. Of the selected seven states, Haryana is one of them where Atal Bhujal Yojana is being implemented by the I&WR department. 14 districts (36 blocks covering 1669 Gram Panchayats) of Haryana have been identified for the planned intervention where the groundwater consumption and groundwater declining rate were higher, he added.
Sh. Satbir Singh Kadian further shared that notably, Atal Bhujal Yojana(Atal Jal) is a Central Sector Scheme with an outlay of INR 6000 crore, out of which INR 3,000 crore is being provided as a loan from the World Bank and INR 3,000 crore as matching contribution from the Government of India (GoI). The funds under the scheme are being provided to the states as grants-in-aid. Funds under the scheme will be disbursed from the World Bank to the GoI based on the achievement of pre-agreed results, he added.
Sh. Satbir Singh Kadian shared that based on the same approach, a review meeting by the World Bank was called upon to check the progress and to discuss the way forward. For the effective implementation of the Atal Bhujal Yojana, it has been emphasized that relevant government departments executing schemes related to sustainable groundwater management must arrive at the same platform to bring in convergence.
Meanwhile, during the meeting, all the 14 selected districts under Atal Bhujal Yojana presented the progress report. Later in the meeting, the district-wise ranking was presented where Sirsa topped the list while Faridabad bagged the last spot.
Taking into consideration the learnings from previous schemes, Atal Bhujal Yojana has adopted Participatory Ground Water Management (PGWM) approach to engage the community in the planning and execution phase. This approach is important to inculcate ownership among the community members, shared Sh. Satbir Singh Kadian.
Task Team Leader, World Bank, Sh. Satya Priya and Sh. M.K Goel were present as a World Bank representative. During the meeting, XEN Atal Bhujal Yojana, representatives from the concerned departments, and SPMU and DPMU teams were also present.