Khattar calls for water conservation

Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar urged people to pay attention to water conservation. He further said that for water conservation, public participation is must.
Addressing the inaugural session of the two-day “Water Conclave” under Amrit Jal Kranti, held by the Haryana Water Resources Authority at Panchkula on Thursday, he said that people should think about the judicious use of water. On farmers, he said that they are the biggest stake holders as most of the water is used for irrigation. He further said that water is very limited and that 85 blocks of the state are already in dark zone.
The Chief Minister said that Haryana does not have any natural source of water and that only rainwater and naturally flowing water from the mountains are the main sources. Besides, the state receives an average rainfall of 5 inches i.e. 150 mm. “In addition, water is supplied from the Yamuna River along with water of Satluj Ravi Beas through Bhakra Dam. We are not getting 3.5 MAF water due to SYL. Presently, the water availability in Haryana is 20 MAF while the demand is 34 MAF. The challenge for us is to bridge this 14 MAF gap,” he added.
He also said that to meet the gap of water demand and availability, rain water harvesting systems would have to be set up. Apart from this, the capacities of reservoirs, ponds and lakes will have to be increased and ground water recharging will also have to be done. “In today’s time, the soil layer has become solid with the use of pesticides, due to which there is a big problem in groundwater recharge. For this, there is a need to pay attention to the techniques of land reform,” said Khattar.
The Chief Minister said that there is a need to work for water conservation as well as its management and to meet the demand of water in the present times, there is a need to adopt the concept of 3-R–Reduce, Recycle and Reuse.