Revitalization of Rivers in India Draft Policy - Isha Guru Jaggi Vasudev

Revitalization of Rivers In India
Draft Policy Recommendation
major nodes of organic farm production. As an increasing number
of farmers take to fruit cultivation and get organized into FPOs, the
role of the state in fostering farm-industry linkages will come into
sharp political focus. Development of this infrastructure and the
linked cold chain would also be a necessary pre-requisite to tap into
the large export market for organic produce. Facilitating export sales
could play a strong role in ensuring domestic price stability in spite
of the rapidly increasing supply of organic farm produce.
• Hub and Spokes Model for Mega Food Parks
The processing units being the hub, the pre-processing centers
being the spokes at cluster level, and the collection centers the
spokes at village level, the village level and cluster level operations is
envisaged to be managed by FPOs, while the main processing unit is
to be managed by industry. There needs to be a guaranteed buyback
arrangement from industry so that the farmers are not at the mercy
of the market for their produce.
WATER RESOURCE DEPARTMENT/ RIVER MANAGEMENT BOARD
There are river management boards for some major rivers, but
otherwise rivers as water bodies are governed by water resource
departments across most states. These departments are responsible for
allocation of water from the river and the type of activities that happen
in and around the rivers. The responsibility of this department will be to
ensure that the activities of tree plantation on the riverine floodplain are
supported and other activities that undo the efforts of tree plantation are
restricted. These include:
• Not permitting any new industrial activity to start on the project area
• Allocating water from the river, based on the flows of the
previous year
• Managing and allocating the quantum of water so that
environmental flow of the river is addressed
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