Centre selects East Garo Hills for water conservation

TURA: In a major boost for water conservation in the green rich district of East Garo Hills, the Central government’s Jal Shakti Abhiyan has identified and selected the district alongside one from the state of Manipur for an intensive water conservation campaign, an official government release stated on Saturday.
The focus area to be covered under the Jal Shakti Abhiyan in East Garo Hills would primarily be on the water levels, creation of ponds, protection of traditional water bodies, ensuring government buildings implement functional rain water harvesting, organising watershed activities, large scale tree plantation movement, inventory water tanks, spring shed and its rejuvenation activities.
East Garo Hills was once only second to South Garo Hills in terms of having the largest forested area but years of unchecked illegal tree felling has reduced the green cover to its bare minimum.
For the implementation of the campaign, a team of experts from the central government recently visited the district to monitor how the conservation and management of water resources and assets creation were to be taken up.
It is worth mentioning that the Jal Shakti Abhiyan (JSA) is a time bound, mission mode water conservation campaign.
The JSA will run in two phases: Phase 1 from  July 1 to September 15 for all states and union territories; and Phase 2 from October 1 to November 30 for states and union territories receiving the retreating monsoon namely Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Puducherry and Tamil Nadu.
During the campaign, officers, groundwater experts and scientists from the central government will work together with state and district officials in India’s most water-stressed districts for water conservation and water resource management by focussing on accelerated implementation of five target intervention.
The JSA aims at making water conservation a Jan Andolan through asset creation and extensive communication.