Bhubaneswar: Odisha was conferred the 5th National Water Award for standing first in the best state category. The award initiated by the Union ministry of Jal Shakti was given to Odisha for its work in water resources conservation and management. President Droupadi Murmu gave away the award at a special ceremony held in New Delhi on Tuesday.
The water resources department in an official statement said the success has been achieved mainly for water conservation.
“For conservation of water resources, 28 in-stream storage structures (ISS) are in progress and 18 ISS are in tendering stage to store nearly 50 million cum of water, 317 check dams completed to store nearly 2.0 million cum of water and to provide irrigation to 7,120 hectares,” it reads.
The statement further stated that under Amrit Sarobar Yojana, renovation of 2,385 tanks have been completed out of 4,656 identified tanks and work in 886 tanks is in progress. Also 22,777 rainwater harvesting systems have been constructed under MUKTA scheme during the year.
“Due to adoption of underground pipeline in the distribution systems, the irrigation efficiency has been increased by more than 20%. To increase water use efficiency technology based water management system has been adopted,” it said.