The National Water Mission (NWM), under the aegis of the Ministry of Water Resources, is one of the eight missions being constituted under the National Action Plan for Climate Change (NAPCC). The NAPCC was launched by the Prime Minister in 2009 as a nation-wide effort to tackle climate change.
Volume I of this mission document gives an overview of the context, objectives, goals and strategies, monitoring and evaluation mechanism and institutional setup, plan of action/timelines, research development training and capacity building plan and fund requirements. It also gives details of the composition of various Advisory Boards, High-level Steering Committee, Technical Committee and Secretariat being setup to run the Mission.
Volume II of the mission document has reports of each of following six Sub-committees set up under the Mission, which are: 1. Policy and Institutional Framework, 2. Surface Water Management, 3. Ground Water Management, 4. Domestic and Industrial Water Management, 5. Efficient Use of Water for Various Purposes, 6. Basin-level Planning and Management.
Details of the objective, strategies, thrust activities, action points and functioning are listed below.
Objective
The overall objective of the NWM, as stated in the mission document is "conservation of water, minimizing wastage and ensuring its more equitable distribution both across and within States through integrated water resources development and management”.
Strategies
The mission will adopt strategies which lead to an integrated plan for sustainable development and efficient management of water resources, with active participation of the stakeholders. It will identify and evaluate various development scenarios and management practices, on the basis of dependable projection of the impacts of climate change on water resources based on reliable data and information. It will also focus on integrated water resources planning and convergence between various water resources programmes.
Other identified strategies of the Mission also aim to review:
- National Water Policy
- Policy for financing water resources projects
- Criteria for design and planning for water resources projects.
Important Thrust Activities
Apart from the activities related to the identified strategies, some of the important thrust activities of the Mission will be:
- Research and studies on all aspects related to impact of climate change on water resources including quality aspects of water resources;
- Expeditious implementation of water resources projects particularly the multipurpose projects with carry over storages;
- Promotion of traditional system of water conservation;
- Intensive programme for ground water recharge in over-exploited areas;
- Incentivize for recycling of water including wastewater;
- Intensive capacity building and awareness programme including those for Panchayati Raj Institutions, urban local bodies and youth;
- Sensitization of elected representatives of over exploited area on dimensions of the problem and to orient investment under NREGA towards water conservation.
Action Points
For achieving the objectives of the Mission, long-term sustained efforts both in terms of time bound completion of identified activities and ensuring the implementation of identified policies and enactment of necessary legislation through persuasion at different levels with the State Governments have been envisaged. The mission document identifies some of the following specific action points by 2012:
- Comprehensive water data base in public domain and assessment of the impact of climate change on water resources
- Review and establishment of network for collection of additional necessary data by March 2011.
- Development of water resources information system and bringing all information in public domain except the data of classified and sensitive nature by March 2012.
- Reassessment of basin wise water situation by March 2011.
- Impact of climate change on water resources based on reliable data by March 2012.
- Promotion of citizen and state actions for water conservation, augmentation and preservation
- Expeditious formulation of river interlinking projects by March 2012.
- Focused attention to over-exploited areas
- Intensive rainwater harvesting and groundwater recharge programme to cover 1120 over-exploited, critical and semi-critical blocks during XI Plan and rest to be covered in XII Plan and 30% of the urban areas by March 2012.
- Intensive rainwater harvesting and groundwater recharge programme to cover all the blocks by March 2017.
- Increasing water use efficiency at least by 20%
- Development of guidelines for incentivizing for recycling of water including wastewater by March 2011.
- Development of guidelines for incentives for water-neutral and water-positive technologies by March 2011.
- Development of guidelines for improving efficiency of urban water supply system by March 2011.
- Preparation of guidelines and manuals for mandatory water audit including those for drinking water purpose by March 2011.
- Review of financing policy and allocations by March 2010.
- Undertake Pilot studies in collaboration with States by March 2012.
- Promotion of basin level integrated water resources management
- Guidelines for different uses of water e.g., irrigation, drinking, industrial etc particularly in context of basin wise situations by March 2011.
- Review of National Water Policy and adoption of revised Policy by March 2013.
Functioning
Functioning of the National Water Mission will be at a ministry level and inter-sectoral groups have been constituted combining resources from other relevant ministries, industry, academia and civil society. A dedicated Mission Secretariat has also been proposed.
Read the mission documents:
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