The Union Ministry of Jal Shakti, recognizing the performance in the field of Water Resources Conservation and Management, has conferred the 5th National Water Award on Odisha.

The Odisha Development Commissioner-cum-Additional Chief Secretary Anu Garg received the coveted award on Tuesday from President Draupadi Murmu in a programme held at Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhi.

This success has been achieved due to the various activities of performances by the Department of Water Resources during the year. 369 million cum of water storage facilities have been developed by completing Lower Suktel Dam and Haldia dam for meeting irrigation, drinking water requirements etc. For conservation of water resources, 28 Instream Storage Structures (ISS) are in progress & 18 ISS are in tendering stage to store nearly 50 million cum of water; 317 Check Dams completed under state funded scheme MATY to store nearly 2.0 million cum of water and to provide irrigation to 7120 hectares, said officials on Tuesday.

Further, 144 MIPs have been renovated and 3.0 million cum water storage capacity enhanced. Under the Amrit Sarobar Yojana, renovation of 2385 tanks have been completed out of 4,656 identified tanks and work in 886 tanks is in progress. 22,777 RWHS have been constructed under the MUKTA scheme during the year.

Due to adoption of underground pipelines in the distribution systems in all categories of irrigation projects, the irrigation efficiency of the projects by and large has been increased by more than 20%. To increase water use efficiency SCADA based water management system and crop diversification has been adopted.

More than 2.21 lakh ha area provided with irrigation facilities benefitting more than 2.5 lakh farmers along with stabilization of 0.45 lakh ha of irrigation area, which includes distribution system of Subarnarekha major irrigation project (10,000 ha.), Gangadhar Meher Lift Canal (25,600 ha.), Baitarani Left Bank Canal of Integrated Anandapur Barrage Project (1400 ha.) and Extension of Harbhangi medium project (2400 ha.).

Moreover, 59 Mega lift irrigation projects for 81,216 hectares of upland area and 15,403 Deep Bore Wells & 2,890 Community LIPs have been installed with creation of 1,39,317 hectares of irrigation command. Further, 90,927 ha of irrigated area transformed from conventional to micro irrigation benefiting 86,847 farmers, the government said in a statement.