Aunachal front-runner in rainwater harvesting - Arunachal Pradesh

Aunachal front-runner in rainwater harvesting
ITANAGAR, Oct 05: Water Resources department of Arunachal Pradesh is ahead in the North
Eastern region in implementation of ‘demonstrative projects on Roof top Rainwater Harvesting &
artificial recharge to groundwater’ under 100% central sector scheme ‘Ground water
management & regulation’
during 11 th Five Year Plan. The
total projects (DPR) cleared by
SLTCC and accepted by New
Delhi of `12.50 crore covering
235 projects in 11 districts of the
state right from Tawang, West &
East Kameng, PapumPare,
Kurung Kumey, Lower & Upper
Subansiri, East & West Siang,
Lower Dibang Valley, Anjaw, Miao (Changlang), Tirap & Longding.
Out of above, the concern union ministry has sanctioned and released an amount of Rs. 5 crore
against 100 projects which have been implemented in Govt. schools, hospitals, PHCs, office
buildings & Circuit houses/IBs etc. These projects have been successfully executed and handed
over to the user agencies for operation, maintenance and its utilization for various water needs.
As per the information gathered from ministry, the total allocation for this demonstration projects
during 11 th Five Year Plan (2007-2012) was `100 crore for the entire country. Thus,
sanction/release of 5% of total allocated fund at national level is a great achievement for the
Published on State Portal of Arunachal Pradesh

WRD, said CE L. Angu.
He further stressed the need for the GoAP to take up such projects under state plan/SPA/DoTC
fund as modality for taking up rain water harvesting/ recharge schemes during 12 th FYP is in
formulation stage and advocated that the GoAP continues this programme from its own
resources and make rainwater harvesting mandatory in each buildings in the state. He also
informed that WRD has an established full-fledged ground water circle headed by SE VN
Pandey, who is also nodal officer for tube well & groundwater to carry out & monitor all activities
under this sector at HQ level.
The inhabitants of border/hill top villages would be the main beneficiaries of these projects as the
Arunachal Pradesh Govt is committed to conserve rainwater in storage tanks to supplement
water requirement during lean period, said WRD Minister Newlai Tingkhatra.
WRD secretary G. Ete informed that the department has been emphasizing on taking up
rainwater harvesting & groundwater recharge schemes in mass scale as rainwater is free from
any kinds of impurity, storage cost is very less & no maintenance cost is involved except for
periodical cleaning etc. He quoted the success story of the projects in Ruksin in East Siang
district which was implemented by this WRD during 2002-03, first of its kind in Arunachal. Over
the years, it has been observed that need for exploitation of groundwater resources for various
water needs, like agriculture/drinking water/industrial and other uses and also adopting rainwater
harvesting & recharging groundwater is taken up immediately, feels WRD Parliamentary
Secretary T.Taiju.
Published on State Portal of Arunachal Pradesh