To review and address the concerns of the minor irrigation projects in the North East region, the National Workshop on Benchmarking for Minor Irrigation Projects was organised at Hotel Vivor, here on Friday. The one-day workshop, organised by Water Resource Department, Nagaland under the aegis of National Hydrology Project (NHP), Ministry of Jal Shakti, Department of Water Resource, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation, deliberated on benchmarking of improving irrigation infrastructure for long-term solution of water problem in irrigation.
Speaking at the programme, advisor water resources department, Namri Nchang, appreciated the agenda of the workshop, which covered a wide range of interesting topics, and hoped that the workshop would emerge with positive output. Nchang, who inaugurated the workshop, appealed to the officials of water recourses department to interact with the visiting members and eminent experts from water and agriculture fields. He also encouraged all the participants to exchange views and opinions in the technical and workshop sessions. The advisor expressed gratitude to the National Project Monitoring Unit (NPMU) of NHP for hosting the national level workshop in Nagaland.
Asserting that it would be the first time for Nagaland to carry out studies on Benchmarking of Minor Irrigation Projects under NHP, the advisor encouraged the officers and staff involved to give their best.
Highlighting about the National Hydrology Project (NHP), Scientist-D (deputy director) NPMU, Dr. KJ Anadha Kumar stated that NHP was a World Bank assisted project as a follow up of Hydrology Project phase I & II being implemented in the entire country including North Eastern states, which were not part of the previous Hydrology Projects (HP).
Dr. Kumar said that the need for such project was felt as the utilisable fresh water was becoming scarce day by day in the entire country, though the country received fairly good amount of rainfall.
He said that appropriate management of water resources was the key, adding that it can be done through Integrated Water Resources Management.
Scientist-D also said that reliable, good quality data to assess and plan the utilisation was prerequisite for efficiently managing the water resources.
Dr. Kumar further said that objective of NHP was to improve the extent, reliability and accessibility of water resources information and to strengthen the capacity of targeted water resources management institutions in India.
He said NHP was a 100% Central grant project to the 49 Implementing Agencies including Government of Nagaland with project duration of eight years with four components—for Water Resources Monitoring System, Water Resources Information System (WRIS), Water Resources Operation and Planning System, Institutional Capacity Enhancement.
The project also has established National Water Informatics Centre (NWIC) under Ministry of Jal Shakthi, which would be the repository of all water related at one platform to assist the Policy makers, planners and administrators in planning decisions based scientific data, as well as for researchers to utilise the data. The project also would develop WRIS for state as well as National level.
Water resource department chief engineer Tsuktinungsang also spoke at the workshop.
Earlier, principal secretary water resource & project coordinator NHP, OT Chingmak Chang, delivered welcome address. Water resource department chief engineer, Tsuktinungsang, expressed gratitude for selecting Nagaland in the venture. He also thanked the World Bank and various central agencies for extending all possible support to the state.
The resource persons for the workshop included Dr. Alok K. Sikka, International Water Management Institute, Dr. Man Singh, Principal Scientists, IARI (DS), Dr. R. K Jhorar, Dean, College of Agricultural Engineering & Technology, Hissar, Dr. Ghanshyam. T. Patle, Asst. Prof, College of Agriculture Engineering and Food Technology, Gangtok, Sher Singh, Director, Evaluation of Water Utilization, CWC Delhi, Dr. Dhananjay Pandit, Director-WRM, RTI International, Pune (DP) and Er. Sobu Angami, Executive Engineer, Water Resources Department, Nagaland.