NHP e-Bulletin

National Hydrology Project has been gradually making significant strides in spite of COVID situation to achieve its objective of unifying the nationwide water resources information, making it available, analysing the issues and delivering solutions as well as developing strength to sustain the efforts. However, in order to ensure that the project benefits are delivered to the stakeholders prior to completion of the project, course corrections for the slacks are being taken up with immediate effect.

Considering the remaining period of only 2.5 years of NHP, the implementation process is to be accelerated in a mission mode. The allocations which have been made to the IAs as per their Project Implementation Plans must be executed by the end of current financial year. In order to complete award of all contracts before ending the current financial year, i.e., March 2022. The process for revision of PIP, based on gap analysis, must be finalised by November 2021. The relevant issues and specific action points for each of the agencies have been formulated through a series of review meetings held by Shri Subodh Yadav, Joint Secretary (A, IC&GW), DoWR, RD & GR and Project Coordinator of National Hydrology Project (NHP) zone wise.

• The JS chaired the 1st Zonal meeting with the 14 North Zone NHP implementing agencies (NWIC, CWC, Uttar Pradesh-SW, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh GW, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, NIH, BBMB, Delhi, SOI, CGWB, CPCB, and Uttarakhand) on 11th October 2021, he reviewed their implementation progress and drew their attention towards gaps in planning. The meeting was attended by NPMU officials, TAMC experts, and the officers from 14 respective implementing agencies of NHP. This is the first physical review meeting of the NHP held with Implementing Agencies post Covid pandemic.
  

  

• The 2nd Zonal review meeting (South Zone) with 9 NHP implementing agencies (Kerala SW, Kerala GW, Tamilnadu, NRSC, Puducherry, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh GW, Andhra Pradesh SW, Telangana GW and Telangana SW) was organized by the WRD, Govt. of Karnataka in Bengaluru on 21.10.21. The agencies participated in the meeting were WRD Karnataka and 8 other Implementing Agencies. The meeting was chaired by Shri Subodh Yadav, Joint Secretary (A, IC, GW) MoJS, Govt. of India. Followed by the review meeting, SJCs, NPMU team and TAMC experts gave a visit to the RTDAS SW & GW stations and had discussion with Vendors.
  

  
• On 28.10.21 the Joint Secretary, Shri Subodh Yadav Ji (A, IC & GW) held a review meeting with the implementing agencies, SJCs, and TAMC experts of Western Regional States’ implementing agencies. The participants were from Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra SW, Maharashtra GW, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, CWPRS, DVC. In this meeting, a review took place on progress of the data transmission to WIMS and the expenditure vs. PIP activities of the Western Implementation Agencies.
  

A few other important meetings taken place in the month are as follows:

• A meeting for the development of a Decision Support System (DSS) for Management of Groundwater Resources of Maharashtra State was conducted on 6th October 2021. All the officers concerned from NPMU, TAMC, NWIC, MRSAC, and SPMU-Maharashtra GW were present. Ms. Anju Gaur from the World Bank had also participated in the meeting.
  

  

  The key purpose of DSS is to support various decisions taken up at the administrative and implementation level and provide guidance for field verification. This is also to support effective implementation of the GW Act and provide essential support for drinking water scarcity management at both rural and urban areas.
  

  This would also help various issues resolved. There will be real-time information on groundwater extraction structures, integration of web services already developed in other projects, a compilation of historical data for time series analysis, gazing data gap and data redundancy, and updates on demography dynamics for groundwater demand. All this information will be integrated into a single platform to strengthen the DSS.
  

• In commemoration of 75 years of Independence (Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav ) and 50 years of statehood of Meghalaya, on 21st October 2021, the office of the Executive Engineer WRD, East Jaintia Hills Division conducted an Awareness Programme for School Students at different project sites in and around Khliehriat, the District Head Quarter. The primary objective was to sensitize and motivate the next generation young minds on the importance of data collection on both surface and groundwater and their usages.
  

  

• Under the Ministry of Jal Shakti, on 2nd October’21, a one-day Celebration was held on Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav India @75 Years coinciding with the Gandhi Jayanti and of “Cleanliness Drive”. It was held in the premises of National Hydrology Project & Atal Jal Bhujal offices at CGO complex, MTNL Building.
  

  
• Gujrat WRD organized an awareness campaign on the Water Quality Monitoring Program targeting students at a primary school in Indroda village at Gandhinagar. The students had participated in an interactive session organised after a demo of the mobile water quality van. The demo has taught the students including “Do by Yourself” testing of water quality parameters using portable kits, live testing of school tap water samples and involved them in use of the portable kit, etc.
  

* Subject to change as studies/KP/DSS are being reviewed and optimised.

West Bengal SW

• Under NHP, West Bengal (SW) has envisaged installation of AWLR, ARG, and AWS at several locations of different river basins throughout the state of West Bengal. A total of 149 RTDAS stations have been planned to be installed. A work order for the installation of instruments at all the above RTDAS stations has been issued. The RTDAS data is expected to be transmitted to the State Data Centre at Salt Lake, Kolkata. This State Data Centre is newly constructed under NHP. The vendor having already started the process of installing the instruments, it is expected to be completed within the stipulated period as per the bid.

Nagaland

• The team of Nagaland is ever first to take up benchmarking of the irrigation project on 5.10.21 under the National Hydrology Project. It is a departmental initiative in association with ICAR. Three cut-throat flumes with facilities for automatic recording have been installed in Nagaland for carrying out the benchmarking studies.

Chhattisgarh

One of the oldest piezometers of Chhattisgarh was constructed in the year 1997 under NHP I Phase. It has got a depth of 30 meters and still functional at Dhanora Village. Protective covers for the piezometer in village Reda and Deogaon in Raigarh district were constructed recently by the project Divisional groundwater survey Bilaspur Water Resources Department. A Bathymetry and Topography survey of Ravishankar Sagar Reservoir was also initiated on 20th October 2021.

Rajasthan

Factory Acceptance Test (FAT) has been completed on 1st October 2021, of SCADA system for Mahi Bajaj Sagar Dam, Banswara, Rajasthan under National Hydrology Project. The FAT was done by the officers in charge of the dam and the NHP Experts.

Harayana

Geophysical logging of 45 out of 70 piezometers has been completed on 31.10.21 at site Gohiyan, District Jind.

Meghalaya

• Piezometer: The first site is at the office of the Divisional Soil & Water Conservation, Khliehriat; this is the shallow Piezometer constructed under the National Hydrology Project. Shri. R. Tongper, JE while in his inspection to the site, he gave a short description and explained in brief about the monitoring various parameters of Ground Water.
• Rain Water Harvesting Structure: The next his site visit was to a Rain Water Harvesting Structure located at Deinchynrum village. Smt. J.Syiem, Sub Divisional Officer explained how it was constructed, its objectives and various benefits in recharging the groundwater.
• Ordinary Rain Gauge: The third location visit was to an Ordinary Rain Gauge installed at the Office campus of the Deputy Commissioner, Khliehriat, constructed under NHP. Shri. R. Tongper, JE explained to the students about the Ordinary Rain Gauge, its different parts and how it functions. He also gave a practical demo to the students as to how to manually measure the rainfall collected on daily basis and the importance of having valid rainfall data required in various fields.
• Roof Top Rain Water Harvesting: The last site visit was the Roof Top Rain Water Harvesting Project located at the Office of the District Agriculture Officer, Khliehriat. Shri. R. Tongper, JE while explaining the process of construction of the Roof Top Rain Water Harvesting Project to the students, he mentioned that there is an urgent need to collect and harvest the rainwater, especially at the Khliehriat area, as it is one of the water-stressed towns. He stressed that by construction of such structures especially at the individual household level, would minimize excess utilization and over-exploitation of groundwater in the area.

• NRSC had organized a first weekly webinar on National Hydrological Modelling System – Products & Services on 27th October 2021. The event provided an overview of the hydrological modelling framework established for India under NHP by NRSC including input data used, estimation of daily water balance components, generation of various value-added products forecasting river discharge and inflows into major reservoirs. The opening remark was by Shri. Rakesh Kashyap, SJC, NPMU under MoWR, followed by an introductory speech on NRSC products & Services by Dr. V. V. Rao, Group Director NRSC and NHP Nodal Officer. Dr. Anju Gaur, TTL, World Bank had also participated in this program. Dr.P.V.Raju, NRSC facilitated the entire program. There were 63 participants attended the event.
  

CWPRS had organized below training in October month under NHP: -

• On 18th Oct’21 - A one-day training program was held on “GW Sensors, Site Selection, Installation, and Maintenance Guideline”. It was inaugurated by Director, CWPRS. The main motto was to organize an in-house training program for skill development to young scientists of CWPRS. 17 scientists had participated in this training program.
  
• On 19th Oct’21 - an online training program on “Data Collection Platform for Hydro-Metrological Instrumentation” was inaugurated by Nodal Officer-Training, CWPRS. 24 scientists had participated in this training program.
  
• On 22nd Oct’21 – A training program on “Overview of Telemetry under NHP” was held on virtual mode. 24 officials from the Research cadre and Technical cadre had participated in this training program. A presentation on “Overview of Telemetry under NHP” was given by Shri P.K.Dorle, Scientist ‘C’. The Speaker explained about the basics of Telemetry, components of Telemetry, the Advantages, and Disadvantages of telemetry, etc
  
• On 27th Oct’21 - CWPRS had organized an In-house online training program on “Assessment of Groundwater Potential of Hard rock region, Upper Bhima Basin, Maharashtra”. 24 officials were participated in this training program. A presentation on “Assessment of Groundwater Potential of Hard rock region, Upper Bhima Basin, Maharashtra” was given by Dr. Mandira Majumder, Scientist ‘C’. The Presentation was concentrated on the part result obtained during carrying out PDS titled “Study of surface and subsurface water interaction using Remote Sensing, Geophydrological and Geophysical techniques and its modelling”.
  

• From 4th to 8th Oct 2021, a 5-day workshop was organized by NRSC on “Impact of Climate Change, Flood Mitigation, and drought Vulnerability” under the Purpose Driven Study entitled Study on the behaviour of flooding and the unexpected drought-like situation in Garo Hills Districts of Meghalaya. The training was focused on basic topics of climate change, flood-related challenges, etc.
  

• A one-day online training session was organized by NWIC on 29th October 2021. The key topic was on “Data Validation & Data View “. It detailed on overview of Data Entry module, selecting a station based on parameters, type and Category, how to enter manual data, how to manually save the entered data records and how to import the bulk data and do Data Validation..
  

• A three-day training was conducted from 20th to 22nd Oct’21 on " Use of Optimisation in River Basin Management and Reservoir Operations". It was conducted by Dr. Nesa IIlich, River-basin Modelling Expert, TAMC. The program was held at the NPMU Office. There were 7 participants from NIH and NCA.
  

• On 5th October 2021, an orientation webinar was held on setting up of Water Quality laboratory for Manipur and the other North Eastern States. It was organized by Tamil Nadu WRD and facilitated by Mr. Rajendra Mohan Bharadwaj, WQ, Expert, TAMC. There was a demonstration session and a detailed explanation on the functional aspects of water quality equipment (WQ) fitted in the mobile van and how it serves the objectives of the project. There were 16 participants attended the event.
  

During the month of October,2021, Implementing Agencies had spent Rs. 29.61 Crore against the released amount of Rs. 7.25 Crore for the same period.

Since its inception in FY 2016-17 until 31stOctober, 2021, a total expenditure of Rs. 681 Crore has been incurred under National Hydrology Project.

The cumulative funds released till October,2021 are Rs. 799 Crore.

Procurement Progress

During October 2021, 27 contracts worth of Rs.15 Cr were awarded and 45 bids worth of Rs. 32.32 Cr were floated.

Cumulative awarded contract value till October 2021 is INR 1717 Cr with package value of INR 1830 Cr.