World News | World Inspired by Steps Taken by India on Water Conservation, Management: Union Minister Shekhawat

Washington, Mar 1 (PTI) India has emerged as a leading country with a holistic and comprehensive water resources management and the world, in particular the developing countries, is inspired by this and is seeking New Delhi's help in addressing such issues, Union Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat has said.

“They (the world community) are amazed to see (the steps being taken by India in water conservation and resources management),” Shekhawat, the Union Jal Shakti Minister, told PTI in an interview.

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The Bharatiya Janata Party MP from Jodhpur is here to attend the World Water Week event being held in person by the World Bank after a gap of three years and attended by more than 400 global experts on water-related issues.

In his keynote address at the event, the minister presented some of the crucial steps taken by India in this field in the last few years.

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In a bilateral meeting, Minister of Sanitation and Water Resources from Ghana, Cecilia Abnea Dapaah, sought assistance from India in addressing the challenges they are facing on water-related issues.

“India inspires all of us,” Shekhawat quoted Dapaah as saying, adding that he received similar feedback from other delegates and participants of Monday's meeting.

On Tuesday, the minister travelled to Knoxville in Tennessee to get a first-hand experience of the assessment of the safety management of dams, and the integration of water resources, being undertaken by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), the source of inspiration for a similar project, the Damodar Valley Corporation in West Bengal and Jharkhand.

Shekhawat said that the Indian government, after the recent passage of the Dam Safety Act, earnestly started working on the safety of dams. He added that in the last five years, India, in association with the World Bank, has taken significant successful steps towards the safety, management, and repair of dams, making it the world's largest rehabilitation and improvement programme involving 700 dams.

India has taken a leadership role in this field and is not far behind, Shekhawat said. He noted that it is at par with the world's best practices on flood forecasting.

Given the global challenges faced in the field of water resources management, Shekhawat said there is a need to have a unified, comprehensive and integrated approach towards this.

During his meetings here, the minister said officials agreed that the World Bank and India should collectively advocate water-related issues.

Responding to a question, Shekhawat said that steps are being taken to ensure that water availability does not pose a challenge in India's path of becoming a developed country by 2047, a vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

India, aiming to become a USD 5 or USD 10 trillion economy and a developed nation by 2047, has to work earnestly to ensure the necessary and adequate water availability. “We have started working in that direction from now onwards,” Shekhwat said. PTI LKJ

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