Maharashtra government shortlists 6,200 new villages for Jalyukta Shivar project

Special water containers have been kept for Mumbai traffic police as the summer heat rises. (Santosh Parab)

Taking forward its drought-free Maharashtra mission, the government Wednesday shortlisted 6,200 new villages for its Jalyukta Shivar project. Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said, “In the last three years, Jalyukta Shivar work was taken in phases across 16,621 villages. Of these 11,247 villages have become water reliant. The remaining will become water reliant by December 2018.”

Directing district officials to begin the work in the newly shortlisted 6,200 villages, he said, “Maharashtra should become totally drought-free by 2019.” While monitoring the progress of water conservation schemes, namely farm ponds on demand, irrigation wells and desilting of dams, the CM said, “These schemes have directly helped farmers and brought about village transformation.”

The villages are in Konkan (300 villages), Pune (900 villages), Nashik (1100 villages), Aurangabad (1400 villages), Amravati (1300 villages) and Nagpur (1200 villages). The review of work to end drought in the last three years shows districts including Nagpur, Nandurbar, Osmanabad, Chandrapur, Bhandara, Sindhudurg and Gondia have completed 80 per cent of the works.

The CM lauded the efforts and urged officials to expedite ongoing works in remaining districts with a followup in the first week of May. Reassuring that funds will not come in the way of water conservation works, the chief minister said, “The villages will be provided Rs 1000 crore budget for the projects.” In coastal Konkan, there is plenty of rain during monsoons. But in summers, water crisis has become a regular feature due to absence of water storage structures, he said.

Projects emphasised during the review meeting included desilting of dams, farm ponds on demand and irrigation wells. Under the scheme for desilting of dams and enriching soil health in fields, work was done in 2,900 dams across the state. It unearthed 1,40,97,856 cubic metres of silt. This helped to create additional water storage capacity in dams. Moreover, the silt, rich in nutrients, has been used as soil in farms. Of the total 1,12,311 farm ponds schemes given the nod, 76,106 were completed in 34 districts. The government provides a subsidy of Rs 50,000 for the farm pond. Ahmednagar district has the highest farm ponds, 8,099.

The deployment of manpower under NEREGA helped in creating permanent assets including 1.26 lakh wells. District officers to expedite the affordable housing projects Shabari and Ramai for lower income and backward categories. He said the target of 10 lakh houses in rural areas should be achieved by 2019.