New Delhi: National Water Mission (NWM), Ministry of Jal Shakti in collaboration with Nehru Yuva Kendra Sangathan (NYKS), Ministry of Youth Affairs & Sports and APAC News Network launched the “Jal Shakti Abhiyan II: Catch the Rain” Awareness Generation Campaign on Monday at Ambedkar International Centre, New Delhi.
The campaign was launched jointly by Union Minister of Jal Shakti, Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, Minister of State (Independent Charge), Youth Affairs & Sports and Minister of State, Minority Affairs, Kiren Rijiju in presence of Minister of State for Jal Shakti and Social Justice & Empowerment, Rattan Lal Kataria.
The launch event was attended by large number of participants on digital platforms including field functionaries of NYKS in all the districts of the country.
The Union Jal Shakti Minister has emphasized on the need to focus on water conservation and rainwater harvesting while Rijiju stressed on the importance of involving the youngsters in the revolutionary campaign.
Mos Jal Shakti said that the Union Government accords the highest priority to the issue of water conservation and the need of the hour is to adopt an integrated approach towards water management. The Ministers collectively unveiled the posters and IEC material promoting Catch the Rain campaign.
While addressing the gathering at the launch event, U P Singh, Secretary, Ministry of Jal Shakti, Govt of India said, “Hey day of dams are over now. Little scope of big dams now. The way forward is to store water in millions of small structures. Dharti Maa ko pani pilaoge toh Dharti Maa tumhe pani pilayegi. This message has to be taken to every household.”
“It’s important to stop rainwater from flowing freely to save the top soil. No agriculture possible if the fertile top soil is washed away,” said Nagendra Nath Sinha, Secretary, Ministry of Rural Development, Govt of India.
G Asok Kumar, Additional Secretary & Mission Director, National Water Mission, Govt of India said that just like crowd funding, harvesting rain water is crowd saving. We need to save rain water for later use.
As a preparatory phase of JSA-II, the Ministry has involved Nehru Yuva Kendra Sangthan (NYKS) for undertaking ‘Catch the Rain’ awareness campaign to cover 623 districts. The awareness generation phase of campaign will run from mid-December 2020 to March 2021. NYKS will undertake this awareness building campaign through various IEC activities which will include conducting education & motivational programs, mass awareness campaigns, environment building including wall writing, banners & e-posters, knowledge competitions, demonstration activities like theme-based nukkadnataks & skits, branding & popularize the campaign by logos & printed IEC materials etc.
NWM has launched a campaign Catch the Rain” with tag line “catch the rain, where it falls, when it falls” in order to nudge all stake-holders to create Rain Water Harvesting Structures (RWHS) suitable to the climatic conditions and sub-soil strata to store rain water as rains falling in the four/five months of monsoon are the only source of water for most parts of the country. Drives to make water harvesting pits, rooftop RWHS and check dams; removal of encroachments and de-silting of tanks to increase their storage capacity; removal of obstructions in the channels which bring water to them from the catchment areas; repairs to traditional water harvesting structures like step-wells and using defunct bore-wells and old wells to put the water back to aquifers etc, are some of the activities suggested to be taken up with peoples’ active participation under this campaign.
It is to be noted that National Water Mission is already running a year long weekly webinar series with District Administrators in association with APAC News Network and covered more than 50 districts so far. This activity is aimed at sensitizing districts on the importance of rain water harvesting.
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