Lucknow: Keeping conservation, better management and usage of groundwater as one of the top-priorities, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, on Sunday, flagged off ‘Digital Groundwater Raths’, marking the beginning of the ‘bhujal saptah’ (groundwater week) across the state.
Addressing the occasion, the Chief Minister said, “These Digital Groundwater Raths’ will increase public awareness, and will ensure public participation in revival of traditional methods of groundwater conservation, making the ‘bhujal saptah’ (July 16 to 22) successful throughout the state.”
The Chief Minister added that even as the exercise of groundwater conservation is being carried out extensively in 550 gram panchayats of 26 development blocks of 10 selected districts of the state under the ‘Atal Bhujal Yojana’, the state government is sparing no efforts to connect every part of the state to this exercise.
Stating that rising demand of water resulted in uncontrolled usage, mismanagement of groundwater, the Chief Minister said, “It is essential to maintain availability and quality of groundwater to ensure that our future generations are not deprived of it.”
As a result of our excessive usage of groundwater and mismanagement, many regions were declared as ‘dark-zones’ in terms of availability of groundwater in the state, however, in the last five years, several measures were taken and dedicated efforts were made to improve the situation. Today, about 25 development blocks are no longer recognized as dark zones and significant improvement has happened, added the CM.
Furthermore, Yogi said that, “to make ‘Catch the Rain’, which was implemented in the state in 2019, successful as the entire country celebrates ‘Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav’, action is underway to develop 75 ponds in the form of ‘Amrit Sarovar’ in rural areas of every district, and even urban areas are joining the exercise.”
Maintaining that his government has made special efforts to promote rainwater harvesting in the state, the Chief Minister said that, arrangements for Rain Water Harvesting at every 500 meters on the recently inaugurated ‘Bundelkhand Expressway’ have also been made to benefit the Bundelkhand region.
Under Atal Bhujal Yojana, only 10 districts were selected by the Centre, however, the state government decided to extend the water conservation plan to the remaining 65 districts as well, said the CM, while discussing two innovative and effective models of water conservation, one in Chitrakoot and the other in Varanasi.
Ensuring that groundwater conservation becomes a mass movement in Uttar Pradesh, the CM said that throughout the week, revival of water bodies will be done by making people aware about the importance of water conservation through farm ponds, check-dams, rooftop rainwater harvesting, integrated water management and more such activities.
