Mission Bhagiratha Scheme

Updated on April 23, 2022, 6:56 a.m.

Water is essential for all life on earth and plays an essential role in our food production, health, environment, Industries and economy. Safe drinking water and freshwater are vital for progress and public health as 25 of the 35 primary diseases in developing countries are related to water. Despite its importance, for people from every walks of life water is a limited natural resource and cannot be generated. Instead, the hydrologic cycle reprocesses water through the atmosphere.

There has been great progress, research and development done in understanding impact of water in the atmosphere, awareness about the dynamic link between water, soil processes and ecosystem responses to climatic signals is still being analysed. Climate change has brought to light a fresh level of complexity, represented by the vast challenge of forecasting the non-linear conduct of water in the atmosphere, the earth, and its interaction with the other water bodies like lakes, rivers, seas and the oceans.

While government policies are still involved on the progressively rare “alternative safe sources,” there is rising awareness of the need to purify water for domestic consumption, in rural, semi-urban and urban areas in Telangana. However, access to the safe drinking water is largely seen as a government responsibility and that line of thought need to change.

However, except for Gujarat, large-scale rural and urban drinking water schemes based on regional water supply have not been created. Telangana showed that they have the ability to create a new scheme to have a decent water supply to fulfil the needs of the people. Decentralised solutions face challenges of management ability, financing opportunities, environmental bearings and suitable technology.

These include demand driven strategies in rural water supply since 1999, public private partnerships to increase the stability of water supply in Telangana and the use of new resources for water supply in order to improve access to good quality water in the state. Many parts of the state are facing the water problems and there is a tremendous rise in the water borne diseases. So, the Government of Telangana has started the Mission Bhagiratha Scheme to overcome the problems related to the water.

The project, which was originally termed as the Telangana Drinking Water Supply Project, was renamed by the Chief Minister Kalavakunthala Chandrasekhar Rao in 2016, after Bhagiratha, a mythological king who was responsible for bringing river Ganga from the heavens to the earth.

Mission Bhagiratha is only scheme of Telangana government attracting the attention of several other chief ministers in India. Chief Minister Kalavakunthala Chandrasekhar Rao announced in 2016 that he won’t pursue votes of people of the state, unless he completes this project and supplies drinking water to all the houses in villages and towns and cities before the next assembly elections.

This is a courageous move by any serving Chief Minister. The fact that our water supply is restricted has horrible effects on our world population of nearly 6 billion people and growing. The global water consumption rate doubles every two years, a pace that is twofold the rate of population growth. If population and consumption trends continue, it is estimated that the demand for water will exceed its availability by 66%, 3.8 billion people will be living in regions of water scarcity by 2030.

This scenario is intensified by the fact that developing countries, already experiencing water-stress, often have the highest population growth rates—bringing more people into a region that already cannot support them.

Now a day we are observing the shortage of water all around the world. This occurred due to sudden changes in the environment and. If we take an example of India, many people in the country are facing the problem of drinking water and also facing the menace of water related diseases. A number of new tactics to expand and improve the water supply have been established in India, in particular in the early 2000s.

OBJECTIVES

The Mission Bhagiratha Scheme was introduced by the Government of Telangana for achieving particular objectives given below like

  • Get rid of shortage of water shortage in the state of Telangana.
  • Provide the safe drinking water to all the houses in the state.

VISION

All the people must have access to maintainable and reliable water supplies that can be effectively managed to provide sufficient, affordable and safe water within a reasonable distance of the home.

FEATURES

The Mission Bhagiratha Scheme introduced by the Government of Telangana comes with noteworthy features given below as follows:

  • They will provide water to 45000 rural habitations and 87 urban habitations.
  •  To provide 100 litres of clean drinking water per person in rural households and 160 litres per person in urban households.
  • This scheme interlinks the Krishna and Godavari river reservoirs in the state to collect, conserve and effectively supply water to every inch of the state.
  • Water will be pumped using gravity of the land and usage of the minimal amount of electricity.
  • The total length of the pipe line used for supplying the water from one place to another as per this scheme is 1.50 Lakh Kilometres in the state.
  • Establishment of groups led by the women to supervise the allocation and systematic distribution of water resources in the villages.
  • Massive pipeline is laid in entire nook and corner of the state to provide quality drinking water to every house in rural and urban areas.
  • Water from reservoirs like Parelu, KomuramBheem, Sriram Nagar, NizamSagar, Jurala Dam will be used to cover the rural and the urban areas of the state of Telangana.
  • 26 Internal Grids has been established in the state to offer safe and quality drinking water to the people.
  • The budget allocation of the Mission Bhagiratha Scheme is INR 41,000 Crores.
  • Mission BhagirathaScheme received special accolades and won first prize in the National Water Mission Awards—2019 under the category of increase in the usage of water efficiency by 50% and awarded INR 2 Lakhs as a reward.
  • The struggle made by the Telangana government in water supply sector has distinctive mention of Mission Bhagiratha by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his 'Mann Ki BaSat' on 22.5.2016. 
  • Housing and Urban Development Corporation (HUDCO) conferred the “Outstanding Contribution in the Infrastructure Segment through the Innovative Initiatives” in the nation to the Government of Telangana.
  • Establishment of 80 Government labs to test the purity of the water under this scheme.
  • All the existing water schemes will be joined with this scheme to make it a huge project in Telangana.
  • Offering the pump treated water to the major Overhead Service Reservoirs and Sumps at places beyond the reach of the common man.
  • Stressed on giving dedicated tap connections to the people living in urban, semi-urban and rural areas.

CREATING BRAND VALUE

The brand “Mission BhagirathaScheme” is the ultimate flagship program of the Government of Telangana for promoting the water resources in a systematic manner. The same water the people get through the taps is packed in to the finest plastic bottles and the intent of the government is to drive home the point that drinking water supplied to the homes through the pipes is very safe and pure, and the water you consume is the same.

Telangana Drinking Water Supply Corporation (TDWSCL) was set up by the government to implement “Mission BhagirathaScheme”. Initially, there was lot of difficulties in implementing the project as permissions had to be taken from various departments like:

  • Road Transport
  • Forest
  • Irrigation
  • Railway
  • Defence
  • National Highways Authority

This project provides new lease of life to the residents of Nalgonda District that is drought prone has recovered well.

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