Agartala: Tripura’s Dhalai district has been awarded the ‘Best District’ tag in the Northeast zone at the 5th National Water Awards 2023.
Union Jal Shakti Minister C R Paatil announced the results on Monday.
The Department of Water Resources, River Development, and Ganga Rejuvenation (DoWR, RD &GR), under the Ministry of Jal Shakti, announced the 38 winners, including joint winners, for the 5th National Water Awards 2023 in 9 categories namely Best State, Best District, Best Village Panchayat, Best Urban Local Body, Best School or College, Best Industry, Best Water User Association, Best Institution (other than school or college), and Best Civil Society.
The Best District awards were presented across various zones, showcasing exceptional efforts in water management and conservation.
Major achievements of the Dhalai District in the field of water conservation include the creation of 748 community recharge structures, micro irrigation systems in additional 15 hectares of land, excavation of 63 ponds, construction of 176 check dams with a storage capacity of 9 lakh cubic metres and construction of 137 water tanks for rainwater harvesting.
In addition, 25,684 water bodies available in the district have been geo-tagged and mapped. 41.32 lakh of miscellaneous and bamboo tree saplings have been nurtured and planted across the district’s expanse.
Community engagement with local communities through interactive sessions, awareness campaigns, workshops and training sessions, has been undertaken to explain water usage patterns and to encourage community participation in conservation and management initiatives.
The winners also included Visakhapatnam from Andhra Pradesh in the South zone, and Banda from Uttar Pradesh along with Ganderbal from Jammu and Kashmir as joint winners in the North region. Indore from Madhya Pradesh won from the West zone and Balangir in Odisha from the East.
In the category of Best Village Panchayat, Khliehrangnah in Meghalaya’s West Jaintia Hills and Hampapuram in Anantapur, Andhra Pradesh shared the third rank as joint winners.
Pullampara in Kerala’s Thiruvananthapuram secured the top rank. Following closely were Masulpani from Kanker in Chhattisgarh in the second place.
The National Water Awards (NWAs) focus on the good work and efforts made by individuals and organizations across the country in attaining the government’s vision of a ‘Jal Samridh Bharat’.
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The awards are for creating awareness among the people about the importance of water and motivating them to adopt the best water usage practices.
The award ceremony, set to be held on October 22 in New Delhi, will be presided over by President Droupadi Murmu.
