Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda on Friday suggested the formation of a National Fund to promote measures for the sustainability of natural streams, use of the conservation technologies and for helping in research and development in this direction.
Speaking at a function of Center of Excellence of Central Board of Irrigation and Power (CBIP) at Gurgaon, Hooda laid stress on adopting scientific approach for achieving the aim of water conservation.
He said that like energy efficient buildings, we should think of constructing water efficient buildings and water efficient industries. He emphasised the need to strike a balance between competitive uses of water and environmental concerns. Hooda said that aim of water conservation will remain a distant dream unless we adopt modern methods of irrigation like drip irrigation, sprinkler irrigation etc.
He said that adopting new techniques for water conservation is the need of hour. Water availability is going down the world over.
In Haryana, there is need of 36 million acre feet of water, whereas only 14 million acre feet is available.
In addition, 40 percent of the ground water is brackish. Despite this, efforts have been made for making optimum use of the water and Haryana today is one of the leading contributors to the national food basket.
The chief minister said that water and power are two important necessities, which are connected with each other.
"I had felt this during my childhood, when my father Ch. Ranbir Singh was Irrigation and Power Minister of Joint Punjab. For progress, development and prosperity, power is an important factor," he said.
He said in Haryana, the demand for electricity is increasing by 7 to 8 per cent every year.
The State Government has given highest priority to the power sector and during last eight years the installed generation capacity of the State has gone up from 1587 MW to 5300 MW, which is more than three times.