Central Ground Water Authority (CGWA) has been constituted under section 3(3) of the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986 for the purpose of regulation and control of ground water development and management in the country. CGWA grants ‘No Objection Certificates’ (NOC) for ground water abstraction in 20 States/UTs as per the guidelines issued on 24.09.2020. These guidelines can be accessed  at

URL: https://cgwa-noc.gov.in/landingpage/Guidlines/NewGuidelinesNotified250920.pdf#ZOOM=100.

In other States/UTs, regulation of ground water is carried out by the State Governments as per their extant guidelines/provisions.

Department of Water Resources, RD & GR (DoWR, RD & GR) is implementing Atal Bhujal Yojana (Atal Jal), a Rs.6,000 crore Central Sector Scheme, for sustainable management of ground water resources with community participation. Atal Jal is being implemented in 80 water stressed districts and 8,565 Gram Panchayats of seven States viz. Gujarat, Haryana, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh from 01.04.2020 for a period of five years.

The scheme has two components, viz. i) Institutional Strengthening and Capacity Building Component, aimed at strengthening the ground water governance mechanism in the participating States; and ii) Incentive Component, aimed at incentivizing the States for various measures including adoption of practices for efficient water use and supply side interventions for ensuring the long-term sustainability of ground water resources.

Further, the scheme envisages active participation of the communities, in various activities such as formation/strengthening of Water User Associations, monitoring and disseminating ground water data, water budgeting, preparation of Gram-Panchayat wise water security plans and their implementation through convergence of ongoing schemes and IEC activities related to sustainable ground water management.

This Information was given by the Minister of State for Jal Shakti, Shri Bishweswar Tudu in a written  reply in Lok Sabha today.

*****

 

BY/AS

(Release ID: 1809263) Visitor Counter : 1722