&w=3840&q=100)
Centre pushes expansion of Atal Bhujal Yojana to tackle groundwater crisis
Chairing the eighth meeting of the National Level Steering Committee (NLSC) of Atal Jal here, Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation Department Secretary Debashree Mukherjee called this scheme a "unique and pioneering initiative" that has empowered local communities to take ownership of groundwater use.
Mukherjee emphasized the urgency of mainstreaming Atal Jal nationally, pointing to the worsening impact of climate change on the water cycle.
She advocated for mandatory water budgeting in all gram panchayats and urged the participating states to develop long-term operation and maintenance plans for infrastructure set up under the scheme.
Mukherjee also encouraged the states to replicate successful pilot projects and use the knowledge and skills developed during implementation to enhance other water conservation initiatives.
"Communities must become central actors in managing groundwater," she said.
Highlighting the scheme's progress, Additional Secretary and National Project Coordinator Subodh Yadav noted that Atal Jal is now in its sixth year.
He presented a pilot case from Ismailpur Gram Panchayat in Haryana's Yamunanagar district where high-frequency groundwater data was used to inform planning.
A third-party impact assessment by the Quality Council of India found that the scheme has led to increased community participation, especially among women, improved local knowledge and a shift towards more water-efficient crops and farming practices, resulting in broader socio-economic benefits.
Representatives from the World Bank, which supports this scheme, acknowledged the positive outcomes and identified areas needing further improvement.
The participating states showcased local impacts during presentations, providing models for cross-learning and expansion.
The committee urged the states to replicate the success of Atal Jal more broadly to build sustainable and inclusive groundwater management systems across the country.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Time of India
21 hours ago
- Time of India
Govt: Oct 3 will be ‘Classical Marathi Day'
Mumbai: The state govt has announced Oct 3 will be celebrated as 'Classical Marathi Language Day' following the Centre's decision last year to confer the status of classical language on Marathi. Also, October 3 to 9 will be marked as 'Classical Marathi Language Week' every year, it said. A govt resolution issued by the Marathi language department on Thursday stated the move aims to promote awareness, preservation of and scholarly engagement with Marathi's rich linguistic and literary heritage. PTI
Indian Express
2 days ago
- Indian Express
Decode Politics: Why a forest rights order has sparked differences between Chhattisgarh govt depts
A unilateral directive by the Chhattisgarh Forest Department in May on community forest resources (CFR) has sparked a turf war within the administration, apart from creating a furore among tribal communities and environmental activists. In its May order, the Forest Department barred all other government departments, and non-governmental and private organisations, from carrying out any work related to CFR – which refers to common forest land that has been traditionally protected and conserved for sustainable use by a particular community – until the Centre creates a scientific template for such forest resources. However, this has raised the concern of the Tribal Welfare Department given that Chhattisgarh's sizeable and politically significant tribal communities have been given rights over the management of CFR areas under the Forest Rights Act (FRA), 2006, and the issue technically falls within its domain. What was the Forest Department's directive? In the absence of guidelines on aligning the execution of local CFR management plans with the National Working Plan Code, 2023, inconsistencies in the implementation of CFR rights were being seen increasingly, a forest official said. Field officers were uncertain whether to adhere to previously approved working plans or accommodate unstructured community-prepared plans, leading to administrative confusion and potential deviation from scientific forest management practices. On May 15, Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (PCCF) V Sreenivasa Rao issued a directive saying that the Centre had issued detailed guidelines regarding proper management of CFR rights, and that the Supreme Court too had said that the management of forest areas be based on scientific methods. The directive further said that a March 2024 joint letter issued by the Union Ministry of Tribal Affairs and the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, had clarified that the Tribal Ministry would prepare 'a Model Community Forest Rights Management Plan / Micro-plan' in accordance with the Environment Ministry's National Working Plan Code, 2023. '(It) will then be shared with all the states,' the directive said. Rao said that the Chhattisgarh Forest Department had requested for a copy of this model management plan, and that further decisions by it on forest management would be based on it. 'At present, the provisions of the National Working Plan Code, 2023 are applicable in the entire notified forest area,' the PCCF said, adding that till the model management plan was received, 'no other department or NGOs or private organisations should do any kind of work within the CFR rights-allotted forest area'. 'At present, no plan other than the working plan approved by (the Union Environment Ministry) can be implemented in the entire forest area of the state,' Rao said. What are the directive's implications for forest-dwelling communities? The directive effectively stops all the community-related work done by forest dwellers to conserve, protect and manage forest resources. With the Chhattisgarh government recognising CFR rights only in 2022, much of the work related to such land remains at a nascent stage. As per the Chhattisgarh government, there are at least 11,450 villages with the potential to be granted CFR rights, but only 4,396 villages have received it so far. The recent directive has halted the further implementation of CFR rights. The directive also stalls the implementation of the Dharti Aaba Janjatiya Gram Utkarsh Abhiyan, a Central scheme granting Rs 15 lakh to each gram sabha for development purposes. As part of its CFR rights, a gram sabha must submit development plans to the District Level Monitoring Committee, headed by the district collector and including a forest official. In the wake of last month's directive, these monitoring committees are no longer processing the gram sabha plans. One such plan concerns Dhudmaras, situated in the heart of Kanger Valley National Park that was selected last year by the United Nations World Tourism Organisation for its Best Tourism Village Upgrade programme. The directive will affect forest dwellers who are largely from Scheduled Tribe (STs), including Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs), and Scheduled Caste (SC) communities. Chhattisgarh has four Lok Sabha (out of 11) and 29 Assembly seats (out of 90) reserved for STs, while 10 Assembly seats and one Lok Sabha seat are reserved for SCs. How have affected communities and political parties reacted? On Wednesday, villagers across nine districts – Dhamtari, Surguja, Kanker, Gaurela-Pendra-Marwahi, Narayanpur, Gariaband, Mahasamund, Balod and Bastar – submitted a memorandum to Chief Minister Vishnu Deo Sai against the directive, alleging it was passed to weaken the Forest Rights Act and constitutional rights of gram sabhas in Chhattisgarh. Chhattisgarh Congress chief and tribal leader Deepak Baij said, 'The BJP government has put all the laws of the Forest Rights Act on hold in Chhattisgarh and they are trying to steal the jal, jungle and zameen (water, forest and land) and minerals of tribals to help private corporations. The forest department is not following the law.' However, state BJP spokesperson Sanjay Srivastav said, 'We are looking into the issue. The BJP will not infringe upon tribal rights and a decision will be taken in the people's favour.' How has the Tribal Department reacted? Sonmoni Borah, who is the Principal Secretary, Tribal Development, Scheduled Caste Development, and Other Backward Classes and Minority Development Departments, maintains that it is the Tribal Department which is the nodal agency on the issue, with the Forest Department a 'supporting authority'. '(The May directive) is being examined… For ensuring the implementation of CFR rights, the Forest Department has the coordination role,' Borah said, adding that they are speaking with the Forest Department and have also sought clarification from the Centre. Forest rights activists have also questioned the Forest Department's move. Environmental activist Alok Shukla said, 'The directive reflects the department's persistent mindset of maintaining absolute control over forest management. This approach stands in direct contradiction to the Forest Rights Act, which not only recognises the community rights of forest dwellers but also empowers them to plan, protect, and manage forest resources independently. It appears to be a desperate attempt by the department to undermine the remarkable progress made by forest-dependent communities.' Another activist, Bijay Bhai, who is also national convener of tribal rights group Bharat Jan Andolan, said the consequences could be widespread. 'On a large scale, (the government) will divert forest land for corporations. Secondly, the democratic governance of forest areas as envisioned by the Forest Rights Act is going to be dismantled. Also, the forest bureaucracy will be strengthened by this and ultimately tribal people and other forest dwellers would get displaced from their ancestral areas.' How has the Forest Department reacted to the opposition to its directive? Countering the Tribal Department's concerns, PCCF Rao said: 'In the absence of a clear directive, there was a serious risk that forest areas would be managed based on unvetted or ad hoc community resource plans… This could have resulted in ecological mismanagement, conflicts between gram sabhas and forest officials, and legal challenges regarding the violation of existing norms… Additionally, it could have jeopardised sustainable forest practices, wildlife habitats, and the long-term ecological balance in sensitive forest zones.' Rao added that the opposition to the Forest Department's initiative seems to stem 'from a misunderstood perception that the directive undermines the spirit of community autonomy envisaged under the Forest Rights Act'.
Indian Express
3 days ago
- Indian Express
Saturday classes, home lessons: Mizoram road to ‘first fully literate state'
The low benches in the school with a faded turquoise roof atop a hill in Tinghmun, a village that school teacher Robert Lalditsak says lies 'in a corner of Mizoram', were made for children aged 10 years and younger. On a sunny morning, five middle-aged villagers sat clapping on these very benches as Laltinkimi, 54, stepped up to the blackboard. The headmaster murmuring words of encouragement in Mizo, she wrote her name in big spidery letters before turning around to beam at others. What may seem like a modest achievement is one that she arrived at after months of classes — either before or after her long hours at the jhum (shifting cultivation farm). 'I didn't know how to read or write at all. Though it was difficult to learn at my age, I tried my best. I practised at home when I could,' she says. Laltinkimi and 16 others from her village are among Mizoram's 425 'neo-literates', mostly adult learners from across the state who passed a Foundational Literacy and Numeracy Test (FNALT) over the past year. Thanks to them, the state has now become India's 'first fully literate state' under the Centre's ULLAS programme, officially called the Nav Bharat Saksharta Karyakram or the New India Literacy Programme. The literacy rate in Mizoram now stands at 98.2%. According to the Ministry of Education's 2024 definition, a state can be called 'fully literate' if it achieves 95% literacy. Kerala's literacy claim The ULLAS programme, which has a five-year timeline aimed at non-literate people aged 15 years and above, was first implemented across the country in 2022. However, there are competing claims on which state became 'fully literate' first based on different datasets. Kerala achieved 'total literacy' in 1991 as per the National Literacy Mission (NLM) norms, which required 90% of a state's population aged between 15 and 35 years to be literate. Kerala had claimed that 90% of its population aged between 15 and 60 years was literate back then. Other datasets backed Kerala's claim. According to the 2011 Census, literacy in Kerala was 93.91% and 91.58% in Mizoram. Under the 'Household Social Consumption: Education' survey, a part of the National Sample Survey from July 2017 to June 2018, literacy among those aged 7 years and above in Kerala was 96.2%. This survey did not have data on Mizoram. However, according to the Periodic Labour Force Survey's annual report from July 2023 to June 2024, Mizoram's literacy rate for those aged 7 years and above was 98.2%, while Kerala's stood at 95.3%. Lijo George, Assistant Director, Kerala State Literacy Mission, says, 'Going by the total literacy definition of above 95%, Kerala is already fully literate. Under ULLAS, we aim to achieve 100% literacy by 2027 (end of programme period). We have identified 92,000 non-literates in the state and the core target is migrant workers.' Race to achieve full literacy Since Chief Minister Lalduhoma declared Mizoram as India's 'first fully literate state' recently, Andrew Lalrintluanga, Deputy Project Director, Mizoram Samagra Shiksha, the nodal agency for the programme, finds himself answering the same question repeatedly: 'Why were the final number of people who crossed this threshold so small, just a few hundred?' Calling Mizoram's ULLAS milestone as the 'last sprint', Lalrintluanga says it was achieved 'after decades of work on literacy'. Mizoram's literacy journey has, in fact, been something of a race. Writing in the Mizo language itself has a history of less than two centuries since languages used by these tribes did not historically have a script. It was only in 1894 that English Baptist missionaries J H Lorrain and F W Savidge codified the Mizo alphabet in the Roman script. Academic Laltluangliana Khiangte has written about how, along with language primers, the missionaries also prepared textbooks for elementary schools and Mizo translations of Christian literature. These would have been the first steps towards literacy among the Mizo people. On what helped Mizoram achieve its latest literacy milestone, Lalbiakdiki Hnamte, Professor, Education, Mizoram University, credits 'volunteerism and community participation'. She says, 'We have seen many literacy programmes — from 'Operation Blackboard' to 'Each One Teach One'. After the state began collaborating with YMA (Young Mizo Association, the biggest organisation here) for implementing government programmes, everything became easier. Everyone is a member of YMA and they have branches in all villages. YMA conveys all programme information to their branches, identifies volunteers and ensures the volunteers work in mission mode,' she says. This 'spirit of volunteerism', she says, has helped Mizoram's literacy rates grow from 0.92% in 1901 and 53.79% in the 1971 Census — fourth highest in India at the time — to 91.33% in the 2011 Census — third highest in the country. 'We are a very close-knit society. Everyone knows everyone. People always quickly fall behind what the village chief says. Even in the case of Christianity, once the chiefs converted, everyone followed quickly and the universalisation of Christianity in the community took place in a short span of time,' she adds. The Tinghmun story The spirit of 'community participation' that Prof Hnamte mentioned had a role to play after the launch of the ULLAS programme in 2022 in Mizoram. In August 2023, the Samagra Shiksha, Mizoram, launched surveys in the state's 11 districts to identify non-literate people aged 15 years and above. Of the 3,026 such people, 1,843 emerged as 'potential learners'. The survey revealed a sizable cluster of non-literate people in Tinghmun village. Located in the far north-east end of the state, Tinghmun lies close to Mizoram's border with Manipur's Pherzawl district. Having a population of around 1,600, its residents blame its remote location and lack of connectivity for its sizable non-literate population. The road till the nearest large village, Upper Sakawrdai, is still a rutted one. But, the villagers say, it did not exist at all till 2009. 'We would walk 10 km on a hilly track to reach Upper Sakawrdai. That was our sole connection to the rest of Mizoram,' says teacher Lalditsak. After the survey for ULLAS was launched, Malsawmthanga, 42, the principal of the government-aided Tinghmun Primary School-II, and three of his friends went from house to house to map non-literates. Malsawmthanga says 23 persons finally emerged as 'potential learners' from the village. 'The number of identified non-literates was higher but I couldn't convince everyone to learn. Some could not manage it because of their farms, while others were ashamed to learn at their age. But I encouraged them, telling them that they would finally be able to read the Bible,' he says. Not all non-literates in Tinghmun needed convincing. One such 'potential learner' was Laldawnsang, 60. 'My parents separated when I was young. We were poor and I was the second oldest among my siblings. Instead of school, I started working on a farm and never stopped. I was excited to receive sir's (Malsawmthanga) call to learn at this age,' he says. After the survey, like teachers across the state, Malsawmthanga started teaching potential learners in Tinghmun. Over the course of six months, he taught 23 of them, most over 35 years old, using the Mizo language primer prepared by the State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT), which develops curriculum for children and support materials for teachers. Malsawmthanga says the classes took place as per the schedules of the teachers and students. 'Sometimes, I would teach for an hour or just 20 minutes. I would call them (the adult learners) to school on Saturday (a school holiday). A few times a week, I would go to one of their homes and call some of them there,' he says. His student Laldawnsang says his children help him study now. 'I still can't type on the phone, but I can write my name now,' he says. Seventeen of Malsawmthanga's 23 students wrote the March 2024 foundational test and were among the state's first phase of 320 'neo-literates' under this programme. Results show that most of these 'neo-literates' are women — 237 of the 320 students. Of Malsawmthanga's 17 learners who passed, 11 are women. Lalsiamtlingi, 47, another learner, says she attended classes around her farm hours, from 9 am to 4 pm. 'It was really tiring at times, but I was determined to learn,' she says. The medium problem Just like the non-literate cluster in Tinghmun, the survey revealed another big group in the state's Lunglei, Lawngtlai and Mamit districts. In fact, the biggest such clusters lay in these districts, located in the state's western belt. Dominated by minority communities like the Chakmas, Brus and Lai, these districts accounted for 72% of the 'potential learners' identified during the survey in Mizoram. Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) officials say the numbers were particularly high among the Chakmas. A minority Buddhist tribal community that has long alleged systemic discrimination within Mizoram, the Chakmas are the second largest community in the state. After the first phase of foundational tests was cleared by 320 people in the Mizo language, the Chakma learners demanded English learning material. 'But the Chakma people don't speak or understand Mizo. Our existing study material was in Mizo. Foundational literacy is better learnt in one's mother tongue, so I had doubts about them doing these lessons and the test in English,' says M Vanhlamawii, Assistant Programme Officer, SSA, Lawngtlai. At this, the SCERT's State Centre for Literacy started work on a new primer and worksheets in English. Classes were conducted with this revised material for these tribes. In January 2025, 105 Chakmas sat for the foundational literacy test — this time in English — and passed. They too were accounted for among the state's 425 'neo-literates'. Vanhlamawii, however, says, a lot more remains to be done. She says she has informed senior officials in Aizawl that learning material in the learners' own language 'will help them learn faster'. Her observation becomes relevant in light of the fact that while the Chakma language — not officially recognised by the state — is taught as a subject till Class 8 in schools under the Chakma Autonomous District Council (CADC), the medium of instruction in primary and middle schools under the council remains English. Meanwhile, even as the state is celebrating the milestone of 'full literacy, its teachers are grappling with challenges in other key education indices, especially where their students stand with respect to those from other states. 'Our students do well in their own schools but the outcome is different when this changes. There is too much emphasis on rote learning. Mizoram is always at the bottom when it comes to the National Achievement Survey (NAS, a national-level assessment to ascertain the students' learning achievement). Our students don't do very well in NEET, JEE. The last time someone from Mizoram cleared UPSC was over a decade ago,' says Professor Hnamte, who is also the chairperson of an Education Reforms Committee formed in Mizoram last year to address these issues. Some of the committee's planned reforms, she says, include conducting random tests in selected schools in line with the NAS assessment to see where the state is going wrong. 'We are also analysing our Class 12 science textbooks in comparison with NCERT textbooks to check for gaps. One of my research scholars is analysing our board's question papers spanning five years against the NEET exam question papers. Assessment is just one aspect. We are trying to see how we can revamp the whole system. Literacy is just a starting point,' she says.
