Schemes run in Madhya Pradesh continue to get applaud at national level, as on Sunday the water conservation scheme ‘Bhagirath Krishak Abhyan’ initiated in Dewas district of the state by a MP cadre IAS officer Umakant Umrao found mention in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s monthly radio program Man ki baat. This was the 19th edition of the programme.
Modi said that somebody told me that an drive to construct farm ponds was launched by a village Panchayat of Dewas. Farm ponds were constructed due to that the ground water level also increased and water level came up. Whenever, the water was needed the crops got the water and through some rough calculations they informed that their agriculture production also increased by 20 per cent. When the water table rises, the quality of water also improves. "Clean drinking water means better health and can actually lead to GDP.
Notably, ‘Bhagirat Krishak Abhiyan’ that has also won an award from United Nations under the category "Best Water Management Practices."
The drive has emerged as the role model in water conservation not only in the country but other countries are also following it.
It has brought the ground water level up as the water gets into the ground when stagnated for five to seven hours.
This water scheme was started in February 2006 after Umrao got posted as Collector in Dewas on January 25, 2006. Since then the self sustainable model has been spreading to other places and more and more people are getting inspired to recreate the model.
While talking to ‘The Pioneer’ Umrao said that ‘nothing sells like profit’ and based on that he equated water conservation to the improvement in the quality of production and profit, thus created a business model of water conservation. The idea of profit motivated many farmers who came forward to try the model and turned it into a success.