Bhubaneswar: On the occasion of the World Water Day, 2022, the Department of Water Resources conducted a brainstorming session on State Water Policy on Tuesday.
Chaired by Additional Chief Secretary Anu Garg the meeting was also attended by the senior officers of the A & FE, PR & DW, H & UD, Industries, WCD, F & ARD, E & IT and I & PR Departments, UNICEF and it’s partner agencies WASSAN, IRC and Arghyam.
Notably, the State Water Policy was formulated in 2007 and many aspects of water governance and issues related to those, in the meanwhile, have undergone perceptible changes.
The session highlighted the need for hitherto uncovered or less covered areas such as emerging areas of data management, IT, sustainability and climate change, gender mainstreaming etc among others; elements of evidence-based informed planning; technology driven initiatives; improved Composite Water Management Index (CWMI); convergence and collaborations and Information Education Communication (IEC) and Social & Behavioural Change Communication (SBCC) to reach out to the stakeholders.
This exercise will be followed up with further rounds of discussions with all the stakeholders such as Government departments, UN agencies, policy makers, academia, practitioners, industries, farmers, partners, experts and other key stakeholders in times to come.