February 13, 2002

    The Union Minister for Water Resources, Shri Arjun Charan Sethi said the problem of erosion which is affecting the lives of millions of people and damaging the country's assets has now become major concern. While discussing the problem of sea and river erosion in a meeting of Parliamentary Consultative Committee of Water Resources Ministry at Gangtok recently. Shri Sethi emphasised the importance of developing in-house capability for the preparation of erosion Intensity Maps of watershed and river basins by using the satellite based remote sensing techniques. He further said that a time bound programme for the priority areas should be prepared in carrying out soil erosion assessment of river basin scale as ell as of coastal areas. The Central Government has been rendering financial assistance to the States to tackle erosion from time to time. Some funds have already been released for Ganga basin States while the matter is being pursued with the Planning Commission for providing assistance to the other states including North-Eastern States, he informed.

    Another important issue brought out by the Minister was indiscriminate extraction of ground water along coastal area, thereby resulting into ingress of sea water into ground water aquifer causing serious drinking weater problem in some parts of the country. He, therefore, emphasised upon the concerned State Governments to have an effective legal framework to prevent such indiscriminate use of ground water along coastal areas.

    Shri Sethi also informed that the Memorandum of Understanding, which was recently signed by the Government of India with the Government of Peoples Republic of China for providing hydrological information on Yaluzangbu/Brahmaputra river during flood season by China to India. This cooperation with China has been revived after a period of 4 decades.

    The meeting was attended by Shri B. N. Navalawala, Secretary, Union Water Resources Ministry, Dr. M. Rehman, Secretary, Parliamentary Affairs and other senior Officers of the Ministry of Water Resources.