PM's panel to paddle for integrated water mission

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister’s inter-ministry task group on water conservation set up under Planning Commission may favour creation of an integrated institutional framework for water resource management to cut through the bureaucratic turf war holding up effective implementation of central programmes.

The group, comprising secretaries to the government, in its report may recommend merger of department of land resources and water resources to create such framework to deal with water resource management at central, state and district levels.

The task group chaired by Planning Commission secretary Rajeeva Ratna Shah, currently finalising the report, is understood to have favoured a national water mission to tackle with the problem of water stress.

Also, the group is said to be of the opinion that existing programmes and schemes for water conservation and management that are under the administrative control of different ministries should be merged into the water mission.

There are some more than half a dozen water conservation and management programme currently under department of agriculture and department of land resources. The water resources ministry which has the expertise in watershed management incidentally has no schemes.

The various programmes identified for merger into water mission are national watershed development project in rainfed areas, river valley projects, flood prone river projects, watershed in shifting cultivation areas and drought prone area programme, desert development programme and integrated watershed development programme.

The group is of the view that the merged entity will pave way for creation of the secretariat for water mission and that the PM could chair it.

This could benefit government’s plans for rural areas as rural land development is largely dependent on investments in ground water extraction and development or in construction of soil and water conservation structures to hold back water run-off.

Commission sources said the group felt that merger of the two departments of the government would help pool resources and expertise resident in two different ministries to bring about a cohesive and comprehensive action to deal with the problem of land degradation and water scarcity.