Jaipur: Rajasthan government has decided to undertake water conservation programme using rain-water harvesting techniques for villages reeling under drinking water shortage.
Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje has given top priority to water conservation programme to enable people get potable water, Panchayat Raj and Rural Development Minister Surendra Kumar Goyal said here.
"Taking the Maharashtra experience as the backgrounder, the state government has prepared a preliminary report on the guidelines to be adopted for execution of the plan," he said while addressing a workshop here.
On the directives of the CM, the state government has adopted the Maharashtra model of water conservation programme and the aim would be to cover 40,000 villages under this project in the next four year, Goyal said.
To start with, the programme would be taken up in 5,000 villages, he said.
"As many as 5,000 villages hit hard with drinking water scarcity has been identified where water?harvesting structures would be created using local resources," the minister said, adding the programme would involve people's participation.
Goyal was speaking at the concluding session of a three-day national seminar on community based water management which was supported by the European Union.
Eighteen experts from various water conservation and rural development sectors deliberated in the workshop in which people?s representative from 11 districts and BDOs of Bikaner, Barmer, Jaisalmer, Jodhpur, Pali, Jalore, Rajsamand, Sikar, Jhunjhunu and Churu also participated.
