Chhattisgarh’s two districts Bilaspur and Surajpur have been honored the National Water Award by the Central Government for their exemplary work regarding the restoration of water bodies and water conservation.
According to an official statement, the restoration programme comes under the Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel’s Narwa Programme, which insured that adequate and quality water was available for drinking, irrigation resources and for recharge of groundwater.
For the category of Revival of River category, Bilaspur got the first prize at the national level in the east, whereas Surajpur district, received the award under the category of Water Conservation. The awards will be distributed in the month of November.
The Narva Programme, completed the construction of 47 structures in various rivers and drain in the Bilaspur districts, and, alongwith that 17.508 million cubic metres of water clogging capacity was developed. Around 49 small reservoir schemes were developed in the district which will garner the waterlogging capacity of 48.53 million cubic metres. The ultimate outcome is the filling of 181 kilometres of rivers and drains. Likewise, the Dabri Mahabhiyan programme initiated the water conservation and elevating groundwater levels in Surajpur. Along with the well, structures such as loose boulder check dama were created for restoring the beneficiary-oriented Dabri. Overall, 4,200 wells, 29 earthen dams, 57 stop dams, 10 under-ground dykes and 10,000 contour trenches were developed over the period of 2 years under the programme.
