Rs 75.80 crore watershed development plan gets state panel nod

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The committee met on Saturday and the meeting was convened to review implementation of the scheme besides assessing the Annual Action Plan for the year 2025-26.

An official spokesperson said Chief Secretary Atal Dulloo exhorted upon the officials concerned to make the best use of this scheme for creation of durable assets in the water stressed areas. He called for community participation in such initiatives so that these could prove to be the most beneficial for them.

Principal Secretary, Finance and APD Departments, Shailendra Kumar, while speaking in the meeting, stressed on including other minor irrigation works in the DPRs so that the water reaches up to the last fields in these areas. He also suggested measures to make the execution of works more transparent and beneficial for the public at large.

The meeting reviewed the progress and approved the proposals under the Centrally-sponsored flagship programme aimed at enhancing the water conservation, climate resilience and sustainable agriculture in the UT.

While highlighting broad contours of the scheme, Secretary RD& PR Department, Aijaz Asad, revealed that under WDC-PMKSY 2.0, several initiatives and infrastructure projects had been implemented to boost watershed-based development.

A significant highlight of the year has been the Watershed Yatra Campaign 2025, launched on 5th February in Kathua district by the Union Cabinet Minister for Agriculture and the UT Minister for Rural Development. The campaign underscored the integrated watershed governance and community participation for which J&K secured second rank nationally for strategic planning and participatory implementation of WDC-PMKSY 2.0.

It was divulged that as part of a new initiative under WDC-PMKSY 2.0, 300 springs have been allocated to J&K for rejuvenation as pilot projects. Further, under the national initiative to rejuvenate 50,000 springs, 3,100 more have been tentatively assigned to the UT for which the final project guidelines are awaited from DoLR.

The committee also approved the revision of Detailed Project Reports (DPRs) to include the newly allocated 300 springs and asked for creation of DPR in consultation with the Jal Shakti Department.