40,000 water bodies developed: Rural Development Ministry

Around 40,000 water bodies have been developed under the Mission Amrit Sarovar in the last 11 months, achieving around 80 percent of the target under the scheme, the Rural Development Ministry said on Friday. The mission, launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 24 April, last year, aims at developing and rejuvenating 75 water bodies in each district of the country as part of the “Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav”.
The total number of Amrit Sarovars to be developed under the scheme is around 50,000, which was set to be completed by 15 August this year. “Within a short span of 11 months, more than 40,000 Amrit Sarovars have been constructed, which constitutes 80 percent of the total target,” the ministry said in a statement.
So far, 1,784 freedom fighters, 18,173 eldest members of panchayats, 448 family members of freedom fighters, 684 family members of martyrs, and 56 Padma Awardees have participated in the mission. The Mission is boosting rural livelihoods as the completed water bodies have been identified for activities like irrigation, fisheries, the cultivation of water chestnut, and animal husbandry.
As of now, 66 percent of user groups are engaged in agriculture, 21 percent in fisheries, six percent are involved in water chestnut and lotus cultivation, and seven percent of the groups are involved in animal husbandry.
Six central ministries — the Ministry of Rural Development, the Ministry of Railways, the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, the Ministry of Jal Shakti, the Ministry of Panchayati Raj, and the Ministry of Environment, Forests, and Climate Change, are working on the mission, along with technical organisations like the Bhaskaracharya National Institute of Space Applications and Geo-Informatics (BISAG-N) and all state and UT governments. The Railway and Road Transport and Highways Ministries are using the excavated soil from the water bodies for infrastructure projects in the vicinity.