First Ever Census on Water Bodies in India •The Ministry of J | UPSC Civil Services Upsc Prelims Mains Exam Current Affairs GS Gk Tricks SSC CGL IAS IFS IPS EPFO PCS UPPCS MPPCS Bihar PCS

First Ever Census on Water Bodies in India

•The Ministry of Jal Shakti has conducted the first-ever census of water bodies across the nation.
•The census provides a comprehensive inventory of India's water resources, including natural and man-made water bodies like ponds, tanks, lakes, and more, and to collect data on the encroachment of water bodies.
•The Census also highlighted disparities between rural and urban areas and varying levels of encroachment and revealed crucial insights into the country's water resources.
•The census was launched under the centrally sponsored scheme, “Irrigation Census” in convergence with the 6th Minor Irrigation Census in order to have a comprehensive national database of all water bodies.
•The information on all important aspects of the water bodies including their type, condition, status of encroachments, use, storage capacity, status of filling up of storage, etc was collected.
•It covered all the water bodies located in rural as well as urban areas that are in-use or not in-use.
•The census also took into account all type of uses of water bodies like irrigation, industry, pisciculture, domestic/ drinking, recreation, religious, ground water recharge etc.