Scrapping 0f Jalyukta Shivar Abhiyan

The Maharashtra government in India has launched a water conservation scheme named Jalyukt Shivar Abhiyan to make Maharashtra a failure-free state by 2019. The programme aims to make 5000 townlets free of water failure every time. The crucial end of Jalyukta Shivar Abhiyan is to establish the belief of a planter that-every drop of rainwater is possessed by them and it should weep in their land. The flagship programme launched by Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, Jalyukta Shivar Abhiyan aims to bring water commission to failure-affected townlets in Maharashtra within five times. The programme Jalyukt Shivar was initiated by Pankaja Munde.

Jalyukt Shivar Abhiyan- 

After scrapping Jalyukt Shivar Abhiyan — a flagship scheme of the quondam Devendra Fadnavis government for water conservation, the Maharashtra government on Thursday cleared a new water conservation programme for restoration of irrigation sources having a capacity of over to 600 hectare (ha) in the state. The three- time programme will be enforced at an expenditure of ₹ crore and has been named Chief Minister Water Conservation Programme (CMWCP).

Under the scheme, the state soil and water conservation department would complete form and restoration of structures in the coming three times till March 2023. The work includes repairing small irrigation ponds, storehouse ponds, old malgujari ponds, vill pond, percolation tanks, earthen nala bund, cement nala bund, storehouse bunds, setting up a pipe distribution system on non-repaired conduit etc., said a elderly functionary from the state soil and water conservation department.

Launched in 2014, Jalyukt Shivar Abhiyan was anticipated to help ameliorate groundwater table and make townlets water sufficient in five times. Fadnavis had also vowed that Maharashtra would be made failure-free by 2019. It was a confluence of several water conservation schemes run by the state government.

Reasons for Scrapping the Project:-

One of the main corruption charges levied against the former government in Maharashtra was against the Jalyukta Shivar design. The CM had blazoned completion of tasks in January, 2019. But in March, charges of disagreement were levelled against tasks carried out under the Jalyukta Shivar scheme, which the government later accepted.

Another reason is indecorous fund allocation during the final leg of the scheme which led to the unacceptable quality of work being carried out during the last three times.

According to the NITI Aayog’s Composite Water Management Index-2019, Maharashtra’s performance in conserving water sources, restoring wormed water bodies, water distribution through conduits and irrigation operation has worsened since 2015. Despite the Jalyukta Shivar programme, the state has performed inadequately in groundwater recharge. This inspired the government’s decision to scrap the design.

Aim-

1. To arrest maximum runoff in the vill area
2. To produce Decentralised Water Bodies
3. To increase the Groundwater Level in Drought areas
4. Revivification of the water storehouse capacity of colourful being structures like Village Tank, Percolation Tank Cement Nala Bandh (CNB) through repairs and emendations
5. To increase the storage capacity of water bodies by removing ground through people’s participation.
6. To sensitise the conception of Water Budgeting

Success of this design-

By January 2019, the scheme had converted failure-prone townlets of Maharashtra. The irrigation cover had been increased by 34 lakh hectares. In the process, thereby, adding the crop yield each time, particularly the kharif crops. Untilmid-2019, interventions redounded in sock of water measuring 24 lakh trillion boxy metres.

Townlets that gained called the scheme a game changer, but critics raised issues like sustainability, the contractor- grounded model and indeed the lack of data gathering to show the mileage of the scheme while the state- run groundwater and check development agency had submitted a report, saying water situations in townlets had drastically gone down.

Future of Water Conservation in Maharashtra-

Geologists and hydrologists, who worked on enforcing the design, participated in analogous views and hailed the Jalyukta Shivar programme. This was substantially due to the interventions accepted in the being water reserves, planned desilting conditioning, among numerous others.

Still, experts agreed that the scheme wasn’t enforced. Now with Jalyukta Shivar no longer in actuality, concentrated sweets of the once five times, in utmost liability, will go down the drain unless an analogous scheme is introduced.

With downfall variations getting more pronounced, in addition to depleting groundwater reserves, the state will need concrete interventions to attack its unborn water conditions.

Conclusion-

Last time, the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government decided to discontinue the scheme over “ irregularities”. The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), in its report tabled in the state council last time, refocused out scarcities in planning and lack of provision of acceptable finances for conservation of the workshop, failure to achieve water impartiality in failure-prone townlets and increase in ground water position as intended. After this, the state government blazed an inquiry into the contended irregularities in the scheme and formed a special disquisition platoon for the same.