‘Efficient water utilisation the biggest challenge’

States have been asked to prepare action plans: NWM project director

National Water Mission project director G. Asok Kumar has stressed the need for increased water utilisation efficiency in the country and as part of it, all the State governments have been asked to prepare State-specific action plan of water utilisation for agriculture and audit all the water resources available. Mr. Asok was speaking at the inaugural session of the workshop ‘Every Drop Counts’ on the System of Water for Agriculture Rejuvenation (SWAR) organised by Vaaradhi Foundation in the city on Saturday.

He said that the country’s water utilisation efficiency was at 38% while it was between 70 and 80% in the countries like the USA.

“We woke up to the water crisis in Chennai recently. It is high time we take cognizance of the situation and try to focus on recycling and reusing water,” he said and added that somehow people focus only on drinking water for which only about 15% water is utilised instead of the remaining 85% of the water used for irrigation.

He said free electricity and MSP for the particular crop has led to wastage of water and depletion of groundwater in some states.

“The biggest challenge is how to control the use of water and how to improve the efficient use of water. Also, cropping pattern which remained almost the same in the last couple of decades need to change,” he said.

“We have asked all the Chief Secretaries to prepare an action plan of water utilisation for agriculture and conduct audit of water resources,” he said. “In the action plans submitted by some States data as old as 2012 was considered. Interestingly there was no uniform measurement of water. Having the latest data would help improve water utilisation and technology like SWAR helps farmers know the exact requirement of water,” he said.

He said that SWAR irrigation system by Centre for Environment Concerns would be promoted at the national level.

The workshop was inaugurated by Chief Secretary L.V. Sibrahmanyam, while Principal Secretary (Agriculture) Y. Madhusudhan Reddy, NABARD chief general manager S. Selvaraj, Guntur Collector Samuel Anand Kumar and others were present.

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