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The Ministry of Jal Shakti told the Rajya Sabha on 3 August 2026 that Atal Bhujal Yojana ran as a pilot from 1 April 2020 to 15 October 2025 across 8,203 water-stressed gram panchayats in 229 blocks of 80 districts in seven states — Gujarat, Haryana, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh — and its learnings have been shared with other states for replication.
A national water body census identified, enumerated and geo-tagged over 24.2 lakh water bodies; under Jal Sanchay Jan Bhagidari more than 1.55 crore recharge and storage structures had been reported built as on 31 May 2026.
Groundwater monitoring now runs on 5,260 digital water level recorders installed by the Central Ground Water Board under the National Hydrology Project, plus 12,764 installed by states and 6,266 under Atal Bhujal Yojana.
In a parallel reply on the North East, the Ministry said central assistance of ₹2,536.96 crore has gone to 263 flood management projects in the North Eastern States including Sikkim under FMBAP since the programme began, up to March 2026.
The Central Water Commission issues flood forecasts at 360 stations nationally — 159 inflow and 201 level forecast stations — of which 53 are in the North-East, and has moved to a 7-day advance advisory using rainfall-runoff modelling.
A community-led participatory groundwater management scheme aimed at improving groundwater management in water-stressed areas through demand-side management, by strengthening institutional and governance frameworks and incentivising states to act at the grassroots. Launched on 25 December 2019 under the Department of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation, Ministry of Jal Shakti.
Key: ₹6,000 crore outlay, funded 50% by a World Bank loan and 50% by the Government of India. Ran as a pilot from 01.04.2020 to 15.10.2025 in 8,203 gram panchayats across 229 blocks in 80 districts of seven states; the learnings have been shared with other states for replication. Its distinguishing idea is demand-side management through convergence of existing Central and State schemes, rather than fresh construction.
A national rainwater harvesting and water conservation campaign. The original Jal Shakti Abhiyan was launched in 2019 in 1,592 blocks of 256 water-stressed districts; the 'Catch the Rain' campaign of 2020 was subsumed into JSA: Catch the Rain, launched in 2021 with the theme 'Catch the Rain — Where it Falls, When it Falls', extending coverage to all blocks in both rural and urban areas.
Key: Monitored through the JSA: CTR dashboard, a central digital platform under the National Water Mission. As on 28.07.2026 the dashboard records over 2.0 crore water conservation and artificial recharge works taken up through convergence.
Launched by the Prime Minister in 2024 to make rainwater harvesting a mass movement, with public participation in building recharge structures.
Key: Every structure is geo-tagged and reported on the JSJB dashboard; over 1.55 crore artificial groundwater recharge and storage works had been reported as on 31 May 2026.
A Centrally Sponsored Scheme providing central assistance to States for flood control, anti-erosion, drainage development and anti-sea erosion works. It merged two earlier XII Plan schemes — the Flood Management Programme (FMP) and River Management Activities & Works related to Border Areas (RMBA).
Key: Flood management and anti-erosion schemes are formulated and implemented by State Governments as per their own priorities; the Centre supplements them with technical guidance and promotional financial assistance. ₹2,536.96 crore has gone to 263 projects in the North Eastern States including Sikkim since inception, up to March 2026.
Launched on 1 July 2015 with the twin goals of extending irrigation coverage — 'Har Khet Ko Pani' — and improving water use efficiency — 'Per Drop More Crop' — through an end-to-end approach covering source creation, distribution, management, field application and extension.
Key: Under the Har Khet Ko Pani (HKKP) component, geo-tagging, GIS mapping and unique identification codes for individual water bodies are used to track Surface Minor Irrigation (SMI) and Repair, Renovation & Restoration (RRR) of Water Bodies works.
Implemented by the Central Ground Water Board to map aquifers, identify recharge zones and assess source sustainability using Remote Sensing and GIS.
Key: Under Phase 1.0 the entire mappable area of the country — 25 lakh sq km — was mapped and district-level aquifer maps with management plans were given to State and district administrations. NAQUIM 2.0 is generating finer-resolution scientific data.
The national groundwater agency — implements NAQUIM, runs near real-time groundwater level monitoring through digital water level recorders, and developed IN-GRES (India-Groundwater Resource Estimation System), the standardised web platform for groundwater resource assessment whose data underpins schemes such as MGNREGA, Atal Bhujal Yojana and Jal Shakti Abhiyan. Established in 1970 by renaming the Exploratory Tube Wells Organisation, then under the Ministry of Agriculture.
The country's apex technical organisation in water resources. Issues short-range flood forecasts with up to 24 hours' lead time at 360 stations, plus inflow forecasts for identified reservoirs, and has developed a basin-wise rainfall-runoff model giving a 7-day advance flood advisory. Its forecasts feed the Common Alert Protocol platform used by State Disaster Management Authorities. Set up in 1945, on the advice of Dr B.R. Ambedkar, then Member (Labour) in the Viceroy's Executive Council.
Statutory body for flood control and water resources planning in the Brahmaputra and Barak valleys. Has prepared 52 Master Plans for the North-Eastern States covering short, medium and long term structural and non-structural flood management measures. Constituted under the Brahmaputra Board Act, 1980, it began functioning from January 1982 and works under the Ministry of Jal Shakti.
One of the eight national missions under the National Action Plan on Climate Change (launched 30 June 2008); its goals are water conservation, minimising wastage and more equitable distribution. The JSA: Catch the Rain dashboard is a platform created under this mission.
Bhaskaracharya National Institute for Space Applications and Geo-informatics (BISAG-N) and the Space Applications Centre, Ahmedabad, are the technical partners with whom the Ministry works on satellite and remote sensing data for mapping and monitoring water resources.
Most Indian groundwater policy until recently was supply-side: build recharge structures, dig more, subsidise pumping. Atal Bhujal Yojana inverts that. Groundwater is a common-pool resource — no single well owner has any incentive to pump less, because the water they leave in the aquifer is drawn by the neighbour. So the scheme works through the gram panchayat: it makes the village produce a water security plan, gives it the aquifer data from NAQUIM and IN-GRES to plan with, and incentivises the state on the strength of measurable improvement rather than on money spent. That is why the pilot design covered 8,203 panchayats rather than a set number of structures — the unit of management is the community over the aquifer, not the borewell.
Simple Analogy: A shared aquifer is a common milk pail with many straws. Buying a bigger pail (supply-side) only postpones the problem; agreeing on how fast each straw may draw (demand-side) is the fix.
Water — including water supply, irrigation, canals, drainage, embankments and water storage — is primarily a State subject, which is why the release says sustainable development and management of water and groundwater is the responsibility of State Governments, with the Centre providing technical and financial assistance.
Empowers the Union to regulate and develop inter-State rivers and river valleys to the extent Parliament declares expedient in the public interest — the constitutional hook for central river-basin bodies.
The statute constituting the Brahmaputra Board, which prepared the 52 Master Plans for flood management in the North-Eastern States.
First adopted in September 1987 and revised in 2002 and again in 2012; the 2012 policy is the one in force and emphasises treating water as an economic good, demand management and equitable distribution.
A non-structural flood mitigation measure. The Ministry of Jal Shakti circulated a technical guideline to States and UTs in August 2025 to enable scientific assessment and zoning of flood plains — states have long resisted enacting flood plain zoning laws.
States meet relief for the 12 notified natural calamities, including floods, from the SDRF already placed at their disposal; additional NDRF assistance follows for a disaster of 'severe nature', assessed by an Inter-Ministerial Central Team (IMCT).
The Atal Bhujal Yojana pilot states are the over-exploited groundwater belt — the alluvial north-west (Haryana, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh), the hard-rock Deccan (Karnataka, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh) and Gujarat. The flood reply covers the opposite hydrological problem in the Brahmaputra and Barak basins of the North East, where the Brahmaputra Board's 52 master plans and 53 of the CWC's 360 forecast stations are located.
The India-Groundwater Resource Estimation System is the standardised platform CGWB built for assessing groundwater resources across the country. Its categorisation of assessment units — safe, semi-critical, critical, over-exploited — is what identifies the 'water-stressed' blocks a scheme like Atal Bhujal Yojana then targets.
Implemented up to 30.09.2025, it funded the DWLR network (5,260 by CGWB and 12,764 by states) and established the Water Information Management System (WIMS) for hydrological data collection, storage and dissemination.
CWC forecasts feed the Common Alert Protocol (CAP) platform, from which alerts reach the State Disaster Management Authority, and are pushed through the Flood Watch India app that carries data on 592 monitoring stations and 150 major reservoirs.
Embankments, anti-erosion works and drainage funded under FMBAP are structural; flood forecasting, the 7-day advisory and Flood Plain Zoning are non-structural. The Ministry's stated push is towards the second, because embankments in a braided river like the Brahmaputra shift the problem downstream.
GS Paper 3 > Conservation and Environment > Water Resources; GS Paper 3 > Disaster Management
General Awareness > Government Schemes and Institutions
General Awareness > Current Affairs
Which of the following is/are the possible consequence/s of heavy sand mining in riverbeds? 1. Decreased salinity in the river 2. Pollution of groundwater 3. Lowering of the water-table Select the correct answer using the code given below:
Answer: 2 and 3 only
Groundwater and flood management appear in Parliament replies through every monsoon session and recur in UPSC Prelims environment questions.
Digital Water Level Recorder — the instrument used for near real-time groundwater level monitoring; 5,260 installed by CGWB under the National Hydrology Project.
National Aquifer Mapping and Management Programme, run by CGWB; Phase 1.0 mapped 25 lakh sq km, the entire mappable area of India.
India-Groundwater Resource Estimation System — CGWB's standardised web platform for nationwide groundwater resource assessment.
A non-structural flood mitigation measure regulating land use in flood-prone plains; a technical guideline was circulated to States/UTs in August 2025.
The team that assesses a calamity of 'severe nature' before additional assistance is released from the NDRF.