Adopt Raj model of watershed techniques, Centre tells states

Jaipur: Additional secretary (land resources department), government of India, Hukum Singh Meena, on Monday said work was going on to include comparative testing of parameters like pre-and-post-plan groundwater quantity, quality, crop pattern and increase in farmer’s income through baseline survey under the Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchai Yojana (PMKSY).
Meena said this during the western regional review meeting of the Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchai Yojana (PMKSY) held on Monday at The Lalit Hotel, Jaipur. The meeting was attended by officials from Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Goa.
He praised the use of GIS and remote sensing techniques in watershed development plans in Rajasthan and asked other states to use these techniques.
Meena also asked the states to adopt various plantation models prepared by Rajasthan for planting saplings as directed by PMKSY 2.0 guidelines.
“PMKSY watershed development scheme is an important scheme to improve the income and standard of living of farmers through groundwater augmentation, water availability and quality enhancement,” said Meena.
Meena also stressed on adopting more and more work of recharge shafts in water catchment projects so that by increasing the level of ground water immediately, the beneficiaries can get maximum benefit of the scheme.
During the review, he gave instructions to all the states to make maximum use of the funds received under the scheme so that the set targets of the scheme could be fulfilled.
He also said effective implementation of watershed development schemes in Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh andGujarat was necessary in order to fulfil the goals of this scheme across the country as about 40 per centof the scheme fall under these states.
During the meeting, Rajasthan panchayati secretary Naveen Jain suggested that the time, cost and effort involved in preparation of DPR can be reduced by incorporating the information available from prior data and study of all the ongoing projects in the country through Artificial Intelligence and, therefore, the quality of DPR could also be enhanced.