Last Updated on April 4, 2021 at 10:31 am
People waited with great anticipation as first census of water bodies of J&K was released on August 11 but no real progress has been made on the ground yet.
Around seven months have been passed since this launch but there has been no significant change in reality. Sources informed that since there is a lack of coordination among various government departments who are involved in this campaign, only formality has been done by now. All departments don’t want to entertain this matter themselves and are putting responsibility on others.
When this programme was launched then it was said that at central level, Census of water bodies will be controlled and monitored by the Ministry of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation while the office of Financial Commissioner, Revenue will manage it at the Union Territory level.
It was also told that departments like Agriculture Production Department, Horticulture Department and Irrigation and Flood Control Department will be the ones who get most benefits from this scheme and they will also play an important role in planning for future.
As there was a need of mobile phones for getting online data of water bodies so they were also provided to Tehsildars. The Census of water bodies will have the responsibility to collect information regarding important parameters of water bodies like their number, size, condition, type of use, storage capacity and many others. This information will be collected of water bodies in both rural and urban areas of Jammu and Kashmir so that a proper database on water bodies can be made so that it can be used in effective planning and policy formation.
