Yavatmal: Even before the onset of winter this year, several villages in the district are in the grip of water scarcity.
As part of water resources management, the district administration on Wednesday declared 68 villages in five tehsils of Yavatmal as water scarcity-hit and imposed a number of restrictions on use of water.
According to sources, Yavatmal receives around 911.34 mm rainfall annually.
However, the district recorded only 703.13 mm rainfall in 2018, which is only 77.15% of the annual average rains.
Arni tehsil recorded highest rainfall of 850.30 mm in the district while the lowest 527.90 mm was recorded in Kalamb tehsil.
In view of the less rainfall, the district is likely to face water scarcity in coming months.
Though, the situation may not become alarming in the first phase (from October to December), in the second phase (i.e. January to March 2019), nearly 41 villages in Yavatmal, Kalamb, Babhulgaon, Kelapur and Ralegaon are set to experience water scarcity.
Around 27 villages in Kalamb and Babhulgaon are likely to face severe water crunch during the third phase stretching from April to June 2019.
Taking cognizance of the prevailing situation, district collector Dr Rajesh Deshmukh has imposed restrictions on use of water resources under Section 26 of Maharashtra Ground Water (Development and Management) Rule, 2009.
Accordingly, water will be allowed to be used only for domestic purposes within a distance of one km from the 68 villages till June 30, 2019, the collector said.

The Congress in Maharashtra Wednesday alleged that the BJP-led state government was delaying the declaration of drought due to lack of funds which was a result of a “fiscal mismanagement”.
State unit Congress president Ashok Chavan also demanded that the government declare drought without any delay and stop using terms such as “drought-like”.
“There is no legal definition of ‘drought-like’.
The government can either declare a drought or declare water scarcity,” the former chief minister said while addressing a rally under “Jan Sangahrsh” Yatra of the Congress at Ausa in Latur district, around 485 kms from the state capital.
Chavan alleged that Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis was playing into hands of a coterie of selct advisors and administrators.
“Latur district is suffering from severe drought.
Despite this, the Chief Minister has chosen to use misleading words such as ‘drought-like’ situation to deceive the people,” he alleged.
He said the government should declare drought in the north Maharashtra and Marathwada, as these regions are reeling under severe water scarcity.
The state Congress president also criticised Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his claim that the BJP-led NDA government has constructed more number of affordable houses that the previous Congress regime.
The Jan Sangharsh Yatra will travel across 27 Vidhan Sabha constituencies in Marathwada region.

Deepak Mhaisekar, the Pune district divisional commissioner, has asked the collectors of all the five districts — Pune, Satara, Sangli, Solapur and Kolhapur — to submit details of the drought-affected tehsils in their respective areas by Thursday.
Mhaisekar said the report will be collated and forwarded to the state government and the official declaration of the drought-affected districts will be made after October 31.
Once the state government declares the districts as “drought-affected”, collectors will start carrying out relief measures in the affected tehsils.
“We have to follow all the guidelines and even the state government will grant funds accordingly.
The drought relief measures will be executed by the respective collectors and more water tankers will be pressed into service.
This apart nine scarcity-related schemes will be implemented,” said Mhaisekar following the chief minister’s review of various government schemes in Sangli district.
After the state’s report is released, a central team is also expected to review the situation and give the final assessment.
Almost half of Maharashtra is reeling under severe water scarcity and farmers from across the state are seeking emergency help.
Farmers said the state had received only 77% of its average rainfall this year.
Farmers, however, want the government to declare a complete drought in the state.

Islamabad : Speakers at the conference on water security of Pakistan called for addressing the issue by devising multi-facet solutions, says a press release.
Lieutenant General (r) Muhammad Zahir Ul Islam, Chairman, CGSS, in his opening remarks pointed out that in recent years, Pakistan has suffered from severe water shortages, flooding and declining water quality.
The worsening water crisis must be resolved if the country is ever to achieve stability and progress.
Agnes Pompos, International Water Expert on Peaceful Water Sharing on Role of International Convention and Agreements in Peaceful Water Sharing, stated the conventions are significant because it creates a framework, a template for existing and future basin agreements and promotes optimal and sustainable utilization for present and future generations.
Minister of State for Climate Change, Zartaj Gul who was chief guest of the occasion presented keynote speech on water security and its Importance for Pakistan.
“Our country is suffering from history’s worst water crisis that requires coordinated efforts at multiple fronts; individual, community, tehsil, district, provincial and national.
There is a need to create public awareness through capacity-building,” she added.
Advocate Ahmer Bilal Soofi- former federal law minister presented his views on Indian violation of Indus Water Treaty.
Shams ul Mulk, former chairman, Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA), spoke on futurist profiling of River Indus with special emphasis on water flowing from western borders and stressed that Kalabagh Dam was the project that could have given Pakistan electricity at the most cheapest rates.
The conference ended by the concluding remarks of the Chairman CGSS and distribution of mementos.

Everything from aging water-related infrastructure and extreme weather to growing populations and climate change impacts the quantity and quality of water resources available throughout the United States.
To better understand which challenges will be most important to address over the next 25 years, a National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) committee has released a report identifying the nation’s prevalent water resource needs, which provided advice to the U.S. Geological Survey Water Mission Area (USGS WMA), which commissioned the report.
, Galla Professor of Biological Sciences at the University of Notre Dame and director of the Notre Dame Environmental Change Initiative, served as one of 15 experts on the NASEM’s Committee on Future Water Resource Needs for the Nation.
In the report, the committee outlined six critical challenges of both national and global water concerns as well as its recommendations.
The report highlighted the importance of developing a water accounting system, which should encompass not only the availability of water resources, but also how the Earth’s biophysical processes impact that availability.
“We really focused on how we prepare for the coming years, as the country faces increasing water-related concerns.
We highlighted that humans are an important piece of the puzzle, both in how we influence water resources as well as our decision-making about our role in the future, making it even more critical that society is involved and informed about future water challenges,” said Tank.
Specific technological innovations — such as sensors, big-data computational models and cloud computing — have the potential to change the way research and monitoring of water resources is conducted.
To read the full report, visit: https://www.nap.edu/catalog/25134/future-water-priorities-for-the-nation-directions-for-the-us.
Contact: Jessica Sieff, assistant director of media relations, 574-631-3933, jsieff@nd.edu

Amritsar
Ernest Hemingway has said, “The earth is a fine place to live on and worth fighting for.” This was uppermost in the mind of Pathankot girl Dr Anupam Khajuria when she took admission in M.Sc (Honours) in environmental sciences in GNDU, Amritsar, and later in Ph.D in environmental engineering in Osaka University, Japan.
The erudite Anupam is of the opinion that progress is impossible without change and those who cannot change their minds cannot see anything.
At the Suzhou conference, she told the panelists and the world that one-sixth of the world’s population was water stressed.
“This, in effect, means that one in every six persons in this universe does not have access to clean drinking water.
The focus of environmentalists these days should be on water-related issues, such as clean water supply and its management, control of water pollution, waste water recycling, impact of climate change and rapid urbanisation on groundwater storage,” she says.
She very well knows how some parts of the state are facing serious groundwater contamination problems.
“This because of slow but steady accumulation of toxins in the land that occurred due to the excessive use of pesticides during the green revolution of the sixties.
Dr Anupam has also participated in similar convention held in Indore in April this year where a declaration titled ‘Indore 3R declaration on achieving clean water, clean land and clean air in cities’ was signed.
Ravi Dhaliwal

Hyderabad: Prisons across Telangana, which were parched for over half of the year, now turned into water havens — thanks to rainwater harvesting pits, ponds, and to some extent the Haritha Haram campaign, which replenished the water table.
In most of them, the bore-wells too would dry up, leading to severe water shortage.
“It was then that we started water conservation activities three years ago,” he said.
“We had a programme to plant teakwood trees and planted about three lakh of these for the long run.
I asked the local authorities to dig a pond for multi-purpose uses,” Singh said.
The idea was to give prisons a ‘resort look’.
“When there is a pond on the premises surrounded by coconut trees, cattle and lush greenery, there are chances of them influencing the mental condition of a person who is lodged there,” he said.
Now, after three years, the results are visible wherever the initiatives were taken up, including the prisons in Hyderabad, Sangareddy and Adilabad.
“We have the ponds filled in all the prisons across the State.
A few were dug up with the help of GHMC,” Singh said, adding that the water table showed tremendous improvement, with no water scarcity in the prisons now.

Pune: The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) on Monday staged an agitation at the district collectorate to raise issues of water crises and ignoring farmers’ problems.
Former deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar and MP Supriya Sule led the march.
The agitators marched from the Zilla Parishad office to the divisional commissioner’s office.
The agitators demanded free seeds and fertilizers for farmers.
Pawar said, “The state government is neglecting farmers.
They are not doing the annewari panchama (assessment of crops) of the areas suffering because of water scarcity.
The government is lacking in planning and the farmers are helpless.” Sule, while speaking to the media after the agitation, said the state government had deceived the farmers.
She said the state government’s flagship programme for irrigation, ‘Jalyukta Shivar Abhiyaan’, proved to be a failure.
“The state government claims that water conservation has improved but the fact is water levels are depleting across the state.
Crores of rupees have been spent on this initiative but still the farmers are facing water crises,” she said.

The Gujarat government Monday declared 51 talukas, comprising 3,291 villages, as scarcity hit owing to scanty rains and announced that relief measures would be started here from December 1st.
All talukas which recorded less than 250 mm of rains in this monsoon have been declared scarcity hit by the state government, deputy chief minister Nitin Patel said.
"Earlier, if the talukas had received less than 125mm rainfall it could be declared scarcity hit as per norms.
However, the Centre has revised the norms.
Relief work in these talukas will begin from December 1," he said.
The government has declared 10 talukas of Kutch district, nine of Banaskantha district, eight of Patan district, seven of Surendranagar district and four each of Ahmedabad and Mehasana districts, among others, as scarcity hit.
He said cattle fodder will be available at Rs 2 per kg and families will get upto 150 days of employment under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Scheme in the affected talukas instead of the compulsory 100 days.
Farmers and opposition Congress members were demanding to declare many districts as scarcity hit to help people tide over water scarcity situation.
(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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