Maharashtra govt to set up water information centre for sustainable development

Mumbai: Maharashtra Cabinet chaired by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde on Monday approved the establishment of the State Water Information Center (SWIC) on the lines of the National Water Information Center (NWIC) to provide value-added products and services to all stakeholders for management and sustainable development of water resources.

The 9-member SWIC will be headed by the state chief secretary comprising secretaries of the various departments and water sector experts.

According to the Chief Minister’s Office, the establishment of SWIC will have multiple benefits including standardisation of data, ease of data exchange and sharing, and improvement in data quality and validation.

It will provide value-added products and services to all consumers of the state for sustainable development and management of available water resources. It will act as a nodal agency and repository for statewide water resources data and for integration of water resources data within the state.

In coordination with the NWIC, it will act as a single-point solution for state, regional and micro-level water resource information collection and dissemination.

The government has made a budgetary provision of Rs 71.20 crore for the next seven years for setting up of the State Water Resources Informatics Center which includes two years of establishment and five years of operations.

Meanwhile, the state cabinet gave the nod to increase the financial criteria applicable for farmers from the scheduled caste and Navbuddh under the Krishi Swavalamban Yojana in a bid to provide more financial benefits to them.

The annual income requirement of Rs 1.50 lakh has been removed for the eligible beneficiaries under the scheme. Similarly, the cabinet also relaxed the condition of the 12-meter depth needed for digging a new well.

For new irrigation wells, the subsidy limit will now be Rs 4 lakh while for repairing old wells the government will provide a subsidy up to Rs 1 lakh. Plastic lining of the farm, solar pump, frost irrigation, drip irrigation, HDPE, and PVC pipe will also get a subsidy of 90 per cent of the actual expenditure or Rs 50,000 whichever is less. For frost and drip irrigation, the government will also provide a subsidy.

Further, the Cabinet also cleared an increase in the allowances provided to the home guards. Nearly 40,000 home guards will benefit. At present, these home guards get Rs 570 per day as duty allowance, which will now be increased to Rs 1,083 crore, exercise allowance, lunch allowance and pocket money allowance have also been increased. The government’s outgo towards this will be Rs 795 crore.