India Conducted Its First Water Census. Here Are The Key Highlights
Ministry of Jal Shakti has launched the first census of water bodies to develop a national database for all water bodies.
Despite having an abundant supply of water resources, India is gradually progressing towards water scarcity due to increasing population pressure and urbanisation.
The country sustains 18% of the world's population but has only 4% of global water resources, according to a census report on water bodies by the department of water resources, river development, and Ganga rejuvenation. As such, the management of water resources has assumed great importance.
The lack of an assured and dependable water supply throughout the year also continues to be a major impediment to agriculture.
The Ministry of Jal Shakti has launched the first census of water bodies with the objective of developing a national database for all water bodies by collecting information on all important aspects of the subject, including their size, condition, status of encroachments, use, storage capacity, and status of filling up storage, among others.
All natural or man-made units bounded on all sides, with some or no masonry work, used for storing water for irrigation or other purposes such as industrial, pisciculture, domestic or drinking, recreation, religious, ground water recharge, are treated as water bodies in the census.
Key Findings
Around 24,24,540 water bodies have been enumerated in the country, out of which 97.1%, or 23,55,055 water bodies, are in rural areas and only 2.9%, or 69,485 water bodies, are in urban areas.
About 59.5%, or 14,42,993, of water bodies are ponds, followed by tanks (15.7%, or 3,81,805), reservoirs (12.1%, or 2,92,280), water conservation schemes/percolation tanks/check dams (9.3%, or 2,26,217), lakes (0.9%, or 22,361), and others (2.5%, or 58,884).
West Bengal has the highest number of ponds and reservoirs, whereas Andhra Pradesh has the highest number of tanks, Tamil Nadu has the highest number of lakes, and Maharashtra is the leading state for water conservation schemes.
A major proportion of water bodies, around 83.7%, or 20,30,040, are in use, whereas the remaining 16.3%, or 3,94,500, are not in use on account of drying up, construction, siltation, destroyed beyond repair, salinity, and other reasons.
Most of the water bodies are used for pisciculture, followed by irrigation, groundwater recharge, and domestic or drinking purposes.
Around 9.6%, or 2,32,637, of the water bodies are located in tribal areas; 8.8%, or 2,13,454, are in flood-prone areas; 7.2%, or 1,74,592, are in the area under the "Drought Prone Areas Programme"; 2%, or 49,470, are in the naxal affected areas; 0.7%, or 16,018, are under the desert development programme and the remaining 71.7%, or 17,38,369, water bodies are located in other areas.
Around 55.2%, or 13,38,735, of water bodies are owned by private entities whereas 44.8%, or 10,85,805, of water bodies are in the domain of public ownership. Out of all public owned water bodies maximum water bodies are owned by panchayats, followed by state irrigation or state WRD. Out of all private-owned water bodies, maximum water bodies are in hands of Individual owner/farmer followed by group of individuals and other private bodies.
78%, or 18,90,463, of the enumerated water bodies are man-made, whereas the remaining 22%, or 5,34,077, are natural water bodies. In terms of storage capacity, 50%, or 12,12,283, of water bodies have storage capacity between 1,000 and 10,000 cubic metres whereas 12.7%, or 3,06,960, have storage capacity greater than 10,000 cubic metres.
About 90.1% of the 'in use' water bodies fulfil the requirements of up to 100 people, whereas 1.7% of the water bodies fulfil the requirements of more than 50,000 people. In terms of benefits to cities and towns, 88.6% of water bodies benefit one city, town, or village, while 10.6% benefit 2–5 cities, towns, or villages, whereas the remaining 0.8% benefit more than 5 cities, towns, or villages.
For the first time, information on the encroachment of water bodies is collected under the census. 1.6% of all the enumerated water bodies are reported to be encroached upon, of which 95.4% are in rural areas and the remaining 4.6% are in urban areas. Out of all encroached water bodies, 62.8% have less than 25% area under encroachment, whereas 11.8% have more than 75% area under encroachment.
Out of all water bodies, 2,29,889 are covered in the district irrigation plan or the state irrigation plan. Among these 86,453 are ponds and the remaining 1,43,436 are tanks, lakes, reservoirs.
The information on 'filled-up storage capacity' has been collected for 21,39,439 water bodies, which are ponds, tanks, lakes, or reservoirs. Out of these water bodies, 41.4%, or 8,86,197, water bodies had fully filled up storage capacity; 28.5%, or 6,08,879, had storage capacity filled upto three fourth level; whereas 6.9%, or 1,48,367, had nil or negligible storage capacity.
