SHILLONG: The Working Group 5 of the State Planning Board has requested the Water Resources Department to get in touch with Geography Department of North Eastern Hill University (NEHU) and North Eastern Space Application Centre (NESAC) to identify and protect water resources of major streams of the state.
The co-chairman of the planning Board, John Kharshiing said that as of now, around 7000 water bodies in the state have been mapped. In addition, the department has also been asked to look into the possibility of tapping ground water.
“We have enough technology through NESAC to know at least how much ground water we have,” Kharshiing said, adding that the working group 5 of the Board has also recommended the department to go for rain water harvesting.
The Planning Board while lamenting that the department has shortage of staffs also rued that Central allocation for the department came at the fag end of March and it remained unspent as a result of which the allocation for next year goes down. “We have asked them to take up the matter with the Union Government,” he said.
Giving information about the schemes of the department, he said that in the year 2015-16, there were 200 ongoing schemes covering an area of 12874 hectares in flow irrigation sector at a cost of Rs 14128.15 lakhs and benefitting 6888 beneficiaries.
The department is also implementing 11 water harvesting schemes at an area of 87 hectares with a cost of Rs 114.03 lakhs.
Kharshiing further informed that the department in the year 2016-17 was implementing 230 ongoing schemes covering 16095 hectares at a cost of Rs 23770. 18 lakhs and the scheme would benefit 10578 families