Take innovative steps to conserve water: Mukesh Agnihotri

Shimla : To overcome the situation of any shortage of water in future, we should make earnest efforts for water conservation, said Deputy Chief Minister Mukesh Agnihotri in a review meeting of the Jal Shakti Department held at Jal Shakti Bhawan Tutikandi, Shimla today.

“There is a need to lay more emphasis on rain and snow water harvesting, groundwater recharge and source stability”, he said. To maintain the quality and conservation of water all the officers should also organize awareness programs. We should also try to protect and preserve traditional water bodies, he said.

The state government is working towards sustainable and equitable development of the state and a work culture should be maintained by all the concerned officers, he said. The officers should work to make 24×7 water available to the common people in the state.

Apart from drinking water, we need to focus on providing more irrigational facilities, he said. With the aim of improving area under irrigation, rapid re-assessment will be done so that need basis work should be ensured, he said.

He asked the officers to frequently visit the field so that better work could be ensured. While stressing upon the need to work with new technology, the Deputy Chief Minister said that a pilot project has been set up in Ghanahatti under Internet of Things (IoT) based monitoring equipment system, and another such project is being set up in Sirmour.

To maintain the quality of water in the state, 67 laboratories have been established, out of which 58 laboratories have been accredited with NABL, he added.

To ensure transparency in the tender process, the bid capacity and work according to the rules should be taken care of. He said that every officer of the level of Executive Engineer should adopt at least 3 schemes each and Superintending Engineer to Engineer-in-Chief should adopt at least one big scheme so that quality of work could be improved, he said. Priority areas should also be defined and all the officers should work in coordination to avoid any hindrance in the development.

Earlier, Secretary Jal Shakti Amitabh Awasthi welcomed and thanked the Deputy Chief Minister and detailed various issues of the department.

Engineer-in-Chief Sanjeev Kaul, Engineer-in-Chief (Projects) Dharmendra Gill, Chief Engineers, Superintending Engineers and other senior officers of the department attended the meeting.