A day-long meeting was held at Haflong Circuit House on Monday where implementation of the Jal Shakti Abhiyan – a water conservation campaign – in Dima Hasao district was discussed.
The meeting was conducted by Dr. J. B. Ekka, principal secretary, Panchayat and Rural Development, Assam with the team of officers of line departments.
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The meeting was also attended by assistant secretaries of the government t of India, Pallavi Sarkar and Dibakar Nath, who have been assigned to look after Dima Hasao for Jal Shakti Abhiyan.
Nandita Gorlosa, executive member (EM), North Cachar Hills Autonomous Council (NCHAC) attended the meeting on behalf of the chief executive member (CEM), NCHAC.
EM Nandita Gorlosa while actively participating in the meeting gave practical inputs to the plan of execution of Jal Shakti Abhiyan in the district.
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Principal secretary, NCHAC, R.K. Majumdar along with council secretaries L.Z. Nampui, who is also project director of the District Rural Development Authority (DRDA) of Dima Hasao and TT Daulagupu, in-charge of planning branch, gave their suggestions during the meeting.
Dima Hasao deputy commissioner Amitabh Rajkhowa also gave an overview of the status of water availability in Dima Hasao and crisis faced in Haflong, the district headquarters.
It may be mentioned that a time-bound, mission-mode water conservation campaign under the banner of Jal Shakti Abhiyan was initiated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently.
Under this campaign, officers from various line departments, groundwater experts and scientists from the government of India will work together with state and district officials in India’s most water-stressed districts for water conservation and water resource management by focusing on accelerated implementation of five target interventions.
Dima Hasao has been identified by the government as one such water stressed district in Assam.
For this, the campaign will run through by the team seeking help from the local farmers of that area.
As the rain pattern and water availability throughout different areas vary depending on their topography.
For this campaign, citizen participation has been encouraged by the government along with all the line departments such as forest department, PHE, DRDA, water resources, irrigation, agriculture, fisheries and soil conservation to work in coordination as a team to improve water use efficiency.
It is expected that Jal Shakti Abhiyan would bring positive change in people for water conservation by focusing on water conservation and rainwater harvesting, renovation of traditional and other water bodies/tanks, reuse and recharge structures, watershed development, intensive afforestation.