Indore stands first in West zone in water conservation

Indore (Madhya Pradesh): The efforts made in the direction of water conservation in the district got rewarded on Friday when the district ranked first among districts of the West Zone of the country in the field of water conservation. The water resources department of the Government of India made the announcement at the third National Water Awards on Friday.

Districts of the North, West, South and East zones of the country have been awarded. The district has ranked first in the West Zone, while Vadodara district of Gujarat and Banswara district of Rajasthan have jointly got the second place in the West Zone.

Nominations were presented on behalf of the district for the award in February 2021 by collector Manish Singh and chief executive officer of the zilla panchayat Himanshu Chandra. The recommendation was made by divisional commissioner Pawan Kumar Sharma. A team of the deputy director level of the Central Ground Water Board was sent by the Centre to verify the work mentioned in the nomination that was submitted by the district. After observing the water conservation and water reuse work done in the rural and urban areas of the district, the award for the district was recommended to the Centre.

The verification teams were impressed by the work of the ridge line and drainage line treatment done through the gram panchayat in Durjanpura and Yashwant Nagar of Mhow tehsil of the district and ground water recharge work under the watershed project in Bhagora village. In the verification, the Kabit Khedi STP Plant of the municipal corporation and Kanadiya Lake conservation work was also witnessed by the visiting team.

In 2020-’21, in the rural areas of the district, 7.38 lakh cubic metres of silt were removed from 100 pounds in which the cost of Rs 9.76 crore was borne by the villagers. The district had also received the first water award in 2019 for the revival of the Choral river. The district has now received the national honours for the second time in the past three years.

Collector Singh and Chandra were congratulated by divisional commissioner Sharma on this occasion.