Mumbai: In a revolutionary attempt to provide a long-term solution to the scourge of annual droughts, the Maharashtra government will throw open 1,423 check dams in six districts of the state today.
The dams will store water for drinking and agriculture as well as raise groundwater levels and charge the local acquifers.
Minister for Employment Guarantee Scheme and Water Conservation, Nitin Raut, called the project “a unique initiative, perhaps the first of its kind on such a large scale anywhere in the world”.
The check dams will be inaugurated simultaneously at 11 am in Pune, Satara, Sangli, Ahmednagar, Solapur and Osmanabad districts.
Comprising Phase I of the project, these 1,423 check dams — or Cement Nalla Bands (CNBs), as they are known in officialese — were constructed in the past two or three months at a cost of Rs1.43bn.
CNBs are made of concrete and can store 10 TCM water and provide water to around four hectares of land.
The CNBs get full at least three to four times during the monsoon and help groundwater supply to wells in the vicinity, recharge acquifers and improve groundwater levels.
With a life span of up to 25 years, a CNB costs around Rs1m to construct.
“The newly-built CNBs would be able to hold monsoon water for a longer period and help direct and indirect irrigation in over 5,000 hectares of land, proving a boon in the parched areas of the state,” Raut said.
Bouyed by the response to the first phase of CNBs, the state government has already started work on Phase II to construct 2,340 CNBs at a cost of Rs2.34bn.
An ambitious Phase III, involving around 5,000 CNBs, will be taken up after funds are made available for the project.
IANS
