Bhubaneswar: The State Government is taking steps to constitute a State Water Informatics Centre (SWIC) dedicated to the handling of State-level water resources data.
Department of Water Resources (DoWR) has given the task for establishment and operationalization of the SWIC.
The SWIC will be set up to act as a dedicated organization for coordination, collection and dissemination of water resources data of the State with the support and guidance from National Water Informatics Centre (NWIC), an official said here on Monday.
And, the SWIC will include a domain expert from each stake holder Department/organization that is dealing with water and sharing of data thereof.
In fact the management of water resources is a highly complex and tedious task that involves expertise of multidisciplinary domains and depend on historical and real time reliable data and information.
Hence, the DoWR has sought views from the Departments of Planning & Convergence, Agriculture & Farmers’ Empowerment, Rural Development and Panchayati Raj & Drinking Water along with Odisha State Pollution Control Board and Odisha Computer Application Centre (OCAC) on the framework for setting of the SWIC.
The SWIC is being created as per the directions of the Central Government which had formed the National Water Informatics Centre (NWIC) under the Ministry of Jal Shakti as a central repository of data on water resources.
Sources said that a memorandum of agreement will be signed between the NWIC and the SWIC in due course.
Earlier, the Department of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation, Ministry of Jal Shakti, had asked all States and Union Territories to nominate lead agencies for establishing SWICs in their jurisdictions.
The Central Government expects SWICs to collaborate with the NWIC for providing ‘a single point of contact for regional and micro-level data collection and dissemination for developing and managing the nation’s water resources.
This initiative will empower, inform and enrich every citizen with up to date and reliable water data and information through web based SWIC.
It will also develop value added products and services for all aspects of integrated water resources management serving the State through research, capacity building, linkages, outreach and better governance in water resources sector, officials say.