New Delhi: Water is a key strategic resource for our country. India accounts for 18% of the world population, whereas we have only 4% of the world water resources that too with large temporal and spatial variability. The situation gets further aggravated when we need to meet the challenge of conflicting sectoral demands. Thus, there is an urgent need to manage precious water resources in a judicious manner. Ministry of Jal Shakti (MOJS), Government of India is striving hard towards sustainable development and management of water resources. In this endeavour, MOJS is implementing a number of schemes with active participation of the states and National Hydrology Project (NHP)is one of the such important scheme. This Central Sector Scheme is being implemented by Department of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation with support from World Bank. The project has a coverage on Pan India basis and intends to set up of a system for timely and reliable water resources data acquisition, storage, collation, management and dissemination. NHP would also be a platform to develop tools and systems for informed decision making in field of flood management, reservoir operations, drought management, etc.
The project also seeks to build capacity of the State and Central sector organisations in water resources management through the use of Information Systems and adoption of State-of-the-art technologies. To achieve the objectives as above, NHP contemplates to promote international level knowledge exchange, solutions exchange and networking necessary to realize these changes.
In this regard, a series of annual Conferences with the theme Sustainable Water Management are being organised under NHP which are proposed to be hosted by different Implementing Agencies. These conferences provide a platform for practicing engineers, scientists, academia and decision makers to come together regularly to discuss evolving water management challenges and opportunities in India.
First such conference was hosted in December 2018 by BBMB at Chandigarh. The second conference is being hosted during November 6-8, 2019 by Water Resources Department, Government of Maharashtra at Pune with the active support from National Project Monitoring Unit, NHP. International Experts from a number. of countries such as Australia, U.S., U.K., Netherlands, Canada, South Korea, European Union, Germany, Thailand, Sri Lanka and Nepal are participating in this Conference apart from Experts from the World Bank and International Commission on Irrigation and Drainage. There would be 12 technical Session under which the experts would be sharing their experiences apart from one dedicated session on best practices in water conservation in which various Government organisations and NGOs would be participating who have excelled in the field of conservation of water resources. Besides there would be a Poster Competition involving the Research Scholars of a number of prestigious institutions for encouraging research and use of state of art technologies in the field of water resources development and management. A no. of national and international vendors and consultants would be showcasing their equipment, technologies and capabilities in the exhibition and the Industry Session.
The Conference would be inaugurated by Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, Union Minister, Ministry of Jal Shakti, Government of India in the presence of Chief Minister and Water Resources Minister of Maharashtra on 6th November 2019 at Hotel Hyatt Regency, Pune. The other dignitaries would include, Members of Parliament, MLAs, Secretary, DOWR, RD and DR, Consul General of Australia and South Korea and senior officers of Government of India and State Government of Maharashtra.
The Event is likely to be attended by more than 500 International and National delegates. The valedictory session would be held on 7th November which would be graced by Sh. Rattan LalKataria, Minister for State, Ministry of Jal Shakti.
