The Union Minister for Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation, Shri Nitin Gadkari has called upon research organizations to innovate in the area of water conservation and sustainable management of water resources. He has stressed upon the need to study advanced technologies and procedures like cloud bursting and water accounting being used in other parts of the world, and adopt those that are feasible for our country. Shri Gadkari was addressing the 37th Annual General Meeting of the National Institute of Hydrology Society in New Delhi today. The Minister said that a lot of people and organizations are doing very good work in this field, and we need to network them on a single platform. Many departments are doing the same kind of work to achieve the same objective, but there is a lack of proper coordination and information sharing among them. In this regard Shri Gadkari suggested that a website should be created for sharing available resources, information and best practices available in different parts of the country.
U.P. Singh, Secretary, Ministry of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation drew attention to the decreasing flow of water in many springs in the Himalayan Region and the need to start a programme for rejuvenating these springs.Director, National Institute of Hydrology (NIH) Shri Sharad Kumar Jain made a presentation on different activities of NIH. The institute was setup in 1978 to carry out research and development in the area of hydrology and water resources. It has excelled in research and consultancy projects, developing world class laboratories, organizing training and mass awareness programmes. NIH is contributing in three major national projects – National Hydrology Project where its role is to provide training and R&D; National Mission for Sustaining Himalayan Ecosystem and Neeranchal National Watershed Project of the Government of India and World Bank. It is also working on various other projects like Interlinking of rivers, Snow/Glacier studies etc.Shri Thakur Mahender Singh, Irrigation and Public Health Minister of Himachal Pradesh and senior officials of the Ministry also attended the meeting.