While Gujarat has been ranked the top on efficiency targets in the review of state and Central government water departments by the ministry of Jal Shakti, Delhi remains in the worst-performing state category according to the ranking for 2019 circulated to different state governments recently, according to a ranking done by the government.
In November 2019, Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) had also claimed that water quality in Delhi is worst as it failed in all the 19 parameters set by them. The AAP led Delhi Government had, however, refuted the reports claiming of “bias” in sample testing.
Among the seven Central departments reviewed, the Survey of India has got the top rank followed by the National Institute of Hydrology (NIH) and Central Water Commission. The Central Pollution Control Board, the country’s pollution watchdog, has got the lowest rank, in the ranking for the year 2019.
According to the previous years ranking, Telangana had topped the state’s water efficiency while Gujarat was ranked seventh. Merely in a year’s time, Gujarat climbed the ladder and has become the number one state, according to the survey. Among the states that significantly improved its ranking was Tamil Nadu, which stood at 13th position as compared to 33 in 2018.
The departments are reviewed on parameters for procurement, finance, real-time data acquisition system, data digitization, analytical work, pieces of training. The agencies have been given a score out of 100. Those scoring 48-100 are termed satisfactory, the ones scoring between 40- 48 are moderately satisfactory; a score between 34-40 falls under moderately unsatisfactory category and a score below 34 is in the unsatisfactory category.
Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat SW, Himachal Pradesh, Kerala, Maharashtra Rajasthan, Telangana, and West Bengal SW have done satisfactory work under the project. Here, SW stands for the surface water department and GW for the groundwater department.
Gujarat surface water department scored 80.51, followed by Damodar Valley Corporation with 68.24 scores and Rajasthan with a score of 66.73. The other states have scored less than 50, indicating that there is a vast scope of improvement in these states to achieve the national water targets.
Rajasthan was ranked 16th in the April-May 2018 rankings. In the rankings issued in December 2019, the state has made the best performance occupying the third rank.
The ranking has been done under the National Hydrology Project that aims to improve drought and flood management, creating a state-specific database on availability, plugging leakages in canals and dams and meteorological forecast on water resources information system.
The aim of the ranking is to review the Central and the state government departments dealing with water to achieve the target to provide piped drinking water connection to every household in the next five years. And, to have a water resources information system (WRIS) for all states to create a real-time integrated National Water Information Center (NWIC).