The Centre has asked states to use the Viksit Bharat–Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission Gramin (VB-G RAM G) to prioritise water conservation and drought-mitigation works, as it looks to use the rural employment programme to accelerate water related works.
It has also shared with states lists of districts reporting deficient rainfall and those considered vulnerable to El Nino, asking them to tailor works to local conditions.
The rural development ministry told the states and Union Territories at a recent meeting to prioritise water harvesting, groundwater recharge, irrigation, watershed development and other natural resource management works, particularly in rainfall-deficient districts.
Data shared by the rural development ministry with HT show that water conservation has emerged as one of the biggest categories of work under the programme. By converging demand-driven employment with investments in water security and sustainable natural resource management, the programme seeks to create durable community assets and improve ecosystem resilience. This integrated framework enables local planning to respond to emerging climate challenges even while ensuring-term livelihood security.”
The nudge comes at a time more than 40% of India’s meteorological subdivisions continue to report deficient rainfall. Total rainfall in the Southwest monsoon season between June 1 and Aug 26 was 13% deficient. Of the total 9.3 million ongoing works, about 30% or 2.8 million are water related, the data showed. Not all of these, however, are new works which began under the revamped July 1 scheme. The Centre has identified 315 El Nino-vulnerable districts including 111 high-priority districts where states have been advised to prioritise water conservation, groundwater recharge, irrigation and drought mitigation works.
“Some of these works may have begun in May or June as generally water harvesting works are started pre-monsoon season in the summers,” the official added. Rohit Kansal, secretary in the ministry of rural development said,” Climate resilience has been embedded as a core design principle of the scheme.
