MUMBAI, June 6:
Water management expert Rajendra Singh today said Maharashtra should enact Water Security Act as part of efforts to free the state from drought and protect water resources.
“Water bodies like rivers, lakes, ponds, dams, streams should be protected from encroachment, pollution and exploitation. Enactment of Water Security Act will help to achieve that,” Singh, popularly known as ‘water man’, said about the drought situation in Maharashtra at a function organised by Mantralaya and Vidhimandal Vartahar Sangh here.
The Act should encompass identification, demarcation, notification of water bodies, Singh, who is a recipient of Ramon Magsaysay Award and Stockholm Water Prize, said.
He said water bodies are common properties which are being converted into private properties. “Many dams and water bodies do not figure in 7/12 land records in Maharashtra,” he said.
The need of the hour is to work on widening and deepening of water streams and revival of lakes and dams, Singh said, adding that there is also a need is to have a river revival policy.
“I have written to Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis about it. Maharashtra rivers have dried or vanished. Godavari river is polluted and I have filed a PIL to cancel the Kumbh Mela if steps are not taken to revive and clean the rivers,” he said.
Singh said more than river linking, need of the hour is to ensure people are linked to the rivers and participation of people is must in drought free programmes.
He said that schemes like Jalyukt Shivar is good to make the state “drought-free” but the Government must ensure that contractors don’t come (involve in processes).
Singh also spoke against the ‘Smart Cities’ concept, saying there is threat to water, forest, land and the development model is to convert villages into cities and not make villages prosperous.
Maharashtra is the ‘Number 1’ urbanised state, he said, adding that the state will progress only if its villages prosper.
“Instead of sugar cooperatives, the state should focus on agriculture cooperatives. Crop pattern should be linked to the rain pattern,” he suggested.
Singh further said 40 per cent of the total dams in the country post independence were set up in Maharashtra and a lot of work has been done in micro irrigation but still sugarcane fields are dry.
The water conservation infrastructure is such that water is stored after rainfall but gets immediately evaporated, he said.
Singh said preference to sugarcane crop has expedited the reduction of underground water table.
He alleged that many political leaders own sugar cooperatives and to sustain their business they have encouraged sugarcane farming which is at the cost of the state. (PTI)
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