Haryana Government has planned to rejuvenate the existing canal system by increasing the capacity of carrier system in the State.
This would be done to ensure that surplus water during the monsoon period can be brought to the State for irrigation as well as conservation, said a spokesman of Irrigation and Water Resources Department.
He said that a vigorous campaign launched by the department has resulted into feeding of almost all the tails in monsoon season except seven critical tails.
There are 1,356 total tails of the Irrigation and Water Resources Department out of which about 218 tails remained short or received deficit supply at tail for the past five to 25 years, he said.
The spokesman said that the Department under the vision of the State Government i.e. ‘Har Khet Ko Pani' has fed almost hundred such tail which were critical and not fed for the last 25 years. Under the Har Khet Ko Pani, a project of improving capacity of various pump houses and canals of the Jawahar lal Nehru lift irrigation System costing `143 crores has been approved.
The 60 per cent work have been completed with the cost of `75 crore and the remaining work would be completed upto March 31 in a phased manner, he added.
The spokesman further said that to provide water upto tail, the work of repair and clearance of the canals and watercourses have been completed with an expenditure of `135 crore. Besides, the rehabilitation work on Petwar Distributary, Hisar Major Distributary, Prithla Distributary, Chander Minor, Panjokhra Minor, Saily Minor, Jahajirpur Minor, and loharu Disty is in final stage with an expenditure of `150 crore.
A project has been planned for the rehabilitation of 125 channels during financial year 2017-18 and 2018-19. Also, a scheme costing `16 crores has been approved by Government to provide fresh water to holy Braham Sarovar at Kurukshetra. The work on the scheme has been started at site and same is likely to be completed by the end of March, 2018, he said.
He said that special emphasis has been laid on removing carrier capacity constraints and the bottlenecks in running canals. In Western Jamuna Canal (WJC) Channel, five old and dilapidated bridges have been reconstructed with the cost of about `30 crores. Apart from this, a `300 crores scheme has been approved by NABARD for rehabilitation of 564 watercourses.
Out of these, work on 150 watercourses has been completed and work on 130 watercourses is in progress at a cost of `81.50 crores. Work on remaining watercourses would be completed by March 31, he further added.
The spokesman said that to encourage the micro irrigation for optimum utilisation of available surface water, department in association with Command Area Development Authority (CADA), is implementing pilot project demonstrating sprinkler and drip irrigation for 13 districts costing about `25 crore.
He added that the Haryana is pursuing for the construction of up-stream storage dams namely Renuka, Kishau and lakhwar Vyasi on river Yamuna for getting assured water supply to Haryana from river Yamuna. National Competitive bidding for construction of lakhwar dam has been called by Uttrakhand Jal Vidyut Nigam limited and execution of this project would start shortly, he said.