NEW DELHI, October 7 — The Ministry of Jal Shakti on Wednesday inaugurated the nationwide 'Jal Sanchay Jan Bhagidari' (Rainwater Conservation through People's Participation) campaign, mobilizing multi-sectoral institutional convergences to construct and rehabilitate one million decentralized groundwater recharge structures across India's over-exploited and water-stressed hydrogeological blocks.
Under the operational matrix notified by the Department of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation, the community-led saturation drive establishes programmatic synergy across MGNREGA natural resource management budgets, the Jal Jeevan Mission catchment fund, and the World Bank-assisted Atal Bhujal Yojana. Target infrastructure encompasses check dams, check weirs, continuous contour trenches, recharge borewells, and village farm ponds constructed with indigenous masonry across rain-fed agricultural belts.
The Union Jal Shakti Minister underlined that drawing upon community-led decentralized conservation practices pioneered in Saurashtra and Western Rajasthan, the national initiative delegates technical execution and asset maintenance to Gram Panchayat Water & Sanitation Committees (VWSCs) and women's self-help groups (SHGs). Every sanctioned percolation structure will undergo mandatory geospatial geotagging synchronized with the National Water Informatics Centre (NWIC) telemetry platform.
Community groundwater management architectures, the Atal Bhujal Yojana, Central Ground Water Authority (CGWA) guidelines, and watershed development physics represent prominent focus areas across UPSC Civil Services (GS-I: Water Resources Geography & GS-III: Environment). Candidates should note that the Atal Bhujal Yojana was launched in December 2019 as a ₹6,000-crore central sector scheme (50 percent funded via World Bank lending) to foster demand-side groundwater management across 78 priority districts in Gujarat, Haryana, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh.