Jahangeer Ganaie
Srinagar, Apr 27 : Of the 9,765 water bodies in Jammu and Kashmir, 9,209 have never been repaired, the Ministry of Jal Shakti census report has revealed.
The Ministry of Jal Shakti released the first ever census of Water Bodies in convergence with the 6th Minor Irrigation (MI) Census under the Centrally Sponsored Scheme “Irrigation Census”.
The census report, a copy of which lies with the news agency—Kashmir News Observer (KNO) has revealed that there are 9,765 water bodies in Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh and among them 9,209 were never repaired and three water bodies are under renovation currently.
As per report, 115 water bodies were repaired before 2009, 11 in 2009, 51 in 2010, 20 in 2011, 34 in 2012, 71 in 2013, 38 in 2014, 59 in 2015, 24 in 2016 , 54 in 2017, 34 in 2018 and 45 after 2018.
Only three water bodies in J&K are under repairing/renovation, it added.
The report has revealed that there are 9,765 water bodies in Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh and among them 7,493 are in use while 2,272 water bodies are not in use.
It said that the 1,051 water bodies are not in use as they have dried up, 24 due to construction, 20 siltation, 214 destroyed beyond repair, 01 salinity, 01 due to industrial effluents and 961 due to other reasons.
As per the report, 7431 water bodies are in use in rural areas of J&K, out of which 718 are used for irrigation, 12 for industrial, 97 for pisciculture, 5935 are for domestic/drinking, 19 are for recreation, 49 are for religious, 129 are for groundwater recharge and 472 for other purposes.
It also said that 48.6% (4,749) are privately owned water bodies across J&K, whereas the remaining 51.4% (5,016) are under public ownership.
According to the census, 24,24,540 water bodies have been enumerated in the country, of which 97.1% (23,55,055) are in rural areas and only 2.9% (69,485) are in urban areas—(KNO)
