The Water Resources department is slowly waking up to the concerns of arid zones of Jharkhand and make necessary arrangement to provide water to dry zones to support population in life supporting activities like agriculture and prevent migration as a result of drying avenues of sustenance.
While holding a meeting of Water Resources and Drinking Water & Sanitation Minister, Chandraprakash Chaudhary emphasised on using surplus water available elsewhere to nurture the parched lands of Palamau, Garhwa, latehar and Chatra. Notably, the department is exploring the possibility of bringing water to the four districts by reaping the advantage of the geographical terrain of the State. The Minister instructed officials to explore the feasibility by using data from other sources.
“It is necessary to provide water to those areas which remain dry even during monsoon,” said Chaudhary. The Minister also reviewed projects on cards to provide water to the Santhal region and expressed that the project should provide support to agriculture and meet requirements of water in municipal areas also.
The Minister also reviewed state of river interlinking projects in Jharkhand and asked officials to ensure that the infrastructure that will be set for bringing water from surplus river to deficient river basin must be made available to irrigation projects in the areas that fall between the rivers being interlinked.
Notably, among the interlinking projects being discussed includes linking Barakar to South Koel, Sankh River to South Koel, South Koel to Subarnrekha.
Interestingly, the main emphasis of the river interlinking projects is to increase water capacity in Subarnrekha to help industrial belts and irrigation projects in areas situated along the river. Even as three interlinking projects are still being explored the detailed project report for linking Barakar to South Koel is likely to be ready by the end of the financial year 2016-17.
Meanwhile, in another meeting on making best use of rain water Chief Secretary Rajiv Gauba lay emphasis on Integrated Watershed Management Programme (IWMP) to facilitate irrigation to the population dependent on agriculture for sustenance. CS expressed that the department of Forest and Directorate of Soil Conservation should monitor all programmes of IWMP on a regular basis.