Climate proofing: Himachal prepares $150 mn plan to manage natural water resources

Watch What Else Is making News

The five-year project aims to arrest the rate of depletion and enhance long term livelihood means of the population living in hilly areas. It also specifies involve the participation of communities in water harvesting and management.

“The whole idea is to revive and restore state’s productive assets like soil,water and biodiversity by employing and undertaking conservation and rejuvenation measures with active involvements of the stake-holders and end-users,” said Anuradha Thakur, secretary, IPH.

Some of the key areas targetted by the department under the project are catchments of main rivers like Sutlej, Ravi, Chenab and Beas apart from their tributaries. “There is huge diverse flora and fauna which is also going to be severely affected by climate change and depletion of water sources in different hill ranges,” she said.

Studies show 50 to 55 percent of the irrigation and water supply schemes, which are critical to human habitations in the mountain areas, are either threatened or already having become defunct despite having heavy investments of public money. Deterioration and degradation of natural resources has resulted in migration of people in search of potential livelihood means. Most vulnerable communities are those who live far away from the water bodies one upper catchments drainage courses.

The IPH concept note also highlights the pitiable scenario which will be emerging in areas which used to received timely rains but now face frequent dry spells or high density rains as result of climate change inducing losses and leading to reduced recharge of the soil profile.

Farming community is faced to bear the brunt that needs immediate mitigation measures, admits a senior engineer of the IPH department.

Initially, says Anuradha Thakur, the project will be taken-up on a pilot basis and later will be expanded to more areas. Some of the benefits of the project will be restoration of the bio-physical environment and water recharge of targetted drainage basins, water harvesting through check dams and other measures.

Due to prolonged dry-spell in the region, Himachal Pradesh has already started suffered drinking water scarcity in some of its areas.

State’s chief secretary V C Pharka, who held a meeting for putting in place an advance preparedness mechanism, said the state needs to go in for an integrated approach, to avert serious affects of the climate change in rivers and natural water resources.