India's Initiative in Environment, Water Conservation has Set an Example for World: Gajendra Singh Shekhawat

Jal Prahari Samman Samaroh 2023 was organised by sarkaritel under the joint aegis of Ministry of Jal Shakti, National Jal jeevan mission and national water mission on March 29, at Maharashtra Sadan, honoured more than 51 people JAL PRAHARI’s (water conservators ) across the country working passionately towards climate change and drinking water crisis management. Jal Praharis, included farmers, scientists, IAS, IRS district level officers and even school principal, who with their innovative uses, equipments, experiments, unique traditional methods have been saving lakhs of litres of water in their areas.
 

Jal Shakti Minister Shri Gajendra Singh Shekhawat and CEO and Editor in Chief, Sarkaritel.com, Ameya Sathe and awardees during the Event 'Jal Prahari Samman'
 

Chief Guest of the occasion, Jal Shakti Minister Shri Gajendra Singh Shikhawat graced the occasion with his presence and honoured the JAL PRAHARI’s from 22 states of the country. In his speech he said, “In the field of water conservation, India’s contribution is extraordinary and beyond imagination. India’s participation in the United Nations World Water Summit and World Water Forum gave India a chance to showcase their work in the field of water conservation which even got appreciated by the United Nations president and other foreign delegates. India’s initiative in Environment and Water Conservation has set an example for world in a very short span of time. India has diverted all the resources from general public to Govt. towards the need and concern of water problems, which has increased three fold with the increase in India’s population. We as responsible Indian citizen should work sincerely towards saving water and avoiding water wastage for our future generation. The future of earth lies in water therefore water needs to be saved for future of our mother land, the sooner we understand the better we are at saving ground water level and climate change for future generation.”

Ms. Archana Verma, IAS officer and Mission Director, National Water Mission very rightly said, “We never know the worth of water until the well is dry, and going by the figure, the concerns regarding water shortage is grave and which needs to be addressed the soonest with water crisis management.”
 

Jal Shakti Minister Shri Gajendra Singh Shekhawat addressing the gathering

Water Warriors from 22 states across the country were honoured at the Jal Prahari ceremony. One water saviour each from states like Delhi, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Chattisgarh, Gujrat, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu, Jharkhand, Punjab, Tripura, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, Telangana etc. and two water saviour each from Haryana, Karnataka, Uttarakhand were selected for the honour. Chief Guest was Minister of Jal Shakti, Honourable Shri Gajendra Singh Shikhawat, Guest of Honor were Dr, Bhagwat Karad, Shri Gopal Shetty, Shri Unmesh Patil, Shri Gopal Arya, BK Asha Didi, Shri Tridev Swami, Shri Sunil Deodhar. Along with them ambassadors of many countries including Netherland, Finland, Malta, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan were present to grace the occasion. Giving more information about the program, the convenor of the ceremony, Anil Singh said that the National Water Mission, UNOPS, CEEW were the knowledge partners of the program and Jal Praharis include many schools, colleges, universities, district officials, non govt organizations and private institutions.

CEO and Editor in Chief, Sarkaritel.com, Ameya Sathe said that, “It was the privilege to honor 11 water conservationists from Uttar Pradesh, 8 from Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh and 10 water conservationists from Maharashtra for their efforts put in water conservation activities across the country and the World.”

Names of the water warriors that were honoured at the ceremony are: Ajit Powar (IAS), Amit Kumar, Anil Sharma, Ankit Kumar Agarwal (IAS), Anshul Garg (IAS), Aruna M Vishweshwar, Arvind Singh, Asha Prabhakar, Bavita Rajput, Bratindi Jena, Chandan Singh Nayal, Chattar Singh, Dattu Rambhau Dhage, Deepak Gupta, Deepak Meena (IAS), Deepak Hari Ranade, Devashish Majumdar, Devvrat Rajkumar, Divya Mittal (IAS), Gajendra Singh, Hanumant Baburao, Nagorao Kendra, Kirti Sharma, MVSS Girdhar, Makarand Anaspure, Manish Rajput, Manubhai Chaudhary, P Yadu Bhushan Reddy, Peter Alexandar, Prasanna Prabhu, Priyanka Pratap Patil, Rajesh Pandit, Rajkumar Rajput Ramesh Goyal, Ramesh Kumar Singh, Ravindra Singhal (IPS), Ravindra Kumar Mander (IAS), Ruma Pathak, Sandeep Kumar Salunkhe (IAS), Sanjay Dutta, Sanju Yadav, Shambhu, Shashikant Dalvi, Shiv Kumar Upadhayay, Snehal Donde, Suman Sharma, Uddhav V Bhosle, Umesh Kumar, Vipin Dubey and Abhijeet Raut (IAS Chief).

Significantly, World Water Day is celebrated every year on March 22, which aims to ensure the availability of clean water in the world and also focus on the importance of water conservation through the program.