Haryana plans district-wise maps of water flow

To avoid natural disasters like drought and floods, Haryana government has planned to prepare comprehensive district-wise maps of natural flow of water.
The mapping would follow concrete steps - to ensure that water reaches tail-ends of all canals, excess rainwater and overflowing ponds are tapped and lastly, all dry ponds are filled in the state.
These directions were issued by the Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar while presiding over a meeting of Rural Development, Public Health Engineering and Irrigation Departments here today, said an official release here.
Khattar directed officers to draw maps of natural flow of water to ensure that water reached the tail-end of every canal.

This would help in ascertaining the actual position about the excess water flowing in different canals and water bodies and its optimal utilization with advance planning.
Flood-prone areas should be identified in every district and steps taken in advance to prevent any possibility of flooding, Khattar said.

The Chief Minister desired that district-wise comprehensive plan should be prepared to fill up all dry ponds in the rural areas by channelizing the rainy water so that it can be utilized for irrigation, cattle consumption and other purposes.
He has also issued directions that district and sub-division level contingency teams should be constituted to deal with any emergency situations arising out of water-logging in the state.

Maximum water goes waste during the rainy season which should be tapped, Khattar said, adding that there were about 1,583 dry ponds in the state of which 309 were filled up during the previous rainy season.
He directed the officers to conduct a survey to identify the areas where there is no need for ponds in both rural and urban areas.
Provision should be made for utilization of about 1,000 overflowing ponds of clean water. Water from these ponds could be dedicatedly utilized for irrigating the nearby fields either by laying pipelines or through water courses, he said.
The contaminated water of ponds in both urban and rural areas should be purified by using chemicals and having three-pond and five-pond system, he said.

The Rural Development and Panchayats Department has initiated 1,400 projects of five-pond system and its positive results would soon be visible.
The Chief Minister expressed concern over the complaints regarding water-logging in different parts of the state and directed the officers to prepare a contingency plan to tackle the problem.
While the Irrigation Department would constitute teams in the rural areas, Public Health Engineering Department and Municipal Corporations would constitute such teams in urban areas. These teams would work on a war footing and rush to the spot on getting any complaint, and rectify it.