Prime Minister Narendra Modi launches Atal Bhujal Yojana to tackle India's water woes

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched Atal Bhujal Yojana (ATAL JAL) during an event in Delhi on December 25, Wednesday.

The event was organized to mark the birth anniversary of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

ATAL JAL has been designed with the principal objective of strengthening the institutional framework for participatory groundwater management and bringing about behavioral changes at the community level for sustainable groundwater resource management in seven States--Gujarat, Haryana, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. Implementation of the scheme is expected to benefit nearly 8350 Gram Panchayats in 78 districts in these States. ATAL JAL will promote panchayat led groundwater management and behavioural change with a primary focus on demand-side management, informed the PM.

A sum of Rs. 6000 crore approved for the program will be implemented over a period of 5 years.

These are big steps in proving the resolve to deliver water to every household in the country by 2024, said the Prime Minister.

A Strategic Tunnel under Rohtang Pass will be named after Vajpayee, the Prime Minister informed during the event.

The historic decision to construct a strategic tunnel below the Rohtang Pass was taken by former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. The tunnel after completion will provide weather connectivity to remote border regions of Himachal Pradesh and Ladakh during severe winter conditions during which they remain cut off from the rest of the country.

The 8.8-kilometer-long tunnel will be the world's longest tunnel above an altitude of 3,000 metres.

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