By Our Correspondent
BHUBANESWAR: The Vice President of India, Shri Jagdeep Dhankhar will confer the 4th National Water Awards on 17th June, 2023 at an award distribution ceremony being organised at Plenary Hall, Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhi by the Department of Water Resources, River Development, and Ganga Rejuvenation (DoWR, RD &GR), Ministry of Jal Shakti. The Department has announced a total of 41 winners, including joint winners, for the 4th National Water Awards, 2022, covering 11 categories. Each award winner will be conferred with a citation and a trophy as well as cash prizes in certain categories.
The 1st Prize for the Best State will be conferred on Madhya Pradesh; Best District will be conferred on Ganjam District, Odisha; Best Village Panchayat will be conferred on Jagannadhapuram Village Panchayat, Bhadradri Kothagudem district, Telangana; Best Urban Local Body will be conferred on Chandigarh Municipal Corporation, Chandigarh; Best Media will be conferred on Advance Water Digest Private Limited Gurugram, Haryana; Best School will be conferred on Jamiyatpura Primary School, Mehsana, Gujarat; Best Institution for Campus usage will be conferred on Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Shrine Board, Reasi, Jammu and Kashmir; Best Industry will be conferred on Barauni Thermal Power Station, Begusarai, Bihar; Best NGO will be conferred on Arpan Seva Sansthan, Udaipur, Rajasthan; Best Water User Association will be conferred on the Sanjeevani Piyat Sahkari Mandli Ltd, Narmada, Gujarat; and Best Industry for CSR Activities will be conferred on HCL Technologies Ltd., Noida, Uttar Pradesh.
As part of the ongoing nationwide drive to realize the Government’s vision of a ‘Jal Samridh Bharat’ or ‘Water Prosperous India’, the National Water Awards focus on encouraging the good work and efforts made by various individuals and organizations. It seeks to create awareness among people about the importance of water and motivate them to adopt best water use practices. The event provides an opportunity to all people and organizations to forge a strong partnership and further strengthen public participation in water resource conservation and management activities.
Under the guidance of Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi, the Ministry of Jal Shakti started a comprehensive campaign to spread awareness about water management and water conservation on a national level. With the objective of encouraging various stakeholders towards adopting a holistic approach towards water resources management in the country, it was considered necessary to set up an integrated National Water Award. Accordingly, the 1st National Water Awards were launched in 2018 by DoWR, RD & GR. The 2nd and 3rd National Water Awards were given for the years 2019 and 2020. The awards were not given in the year 2021 due to CoVID pandemic.
In the year 2022, 4th National Water Awards were launched on 30th July, 2022 on Rashtriya Puraskar Portal of Ministry of Home Affairs. A total of 868 applications were received by the last date on 31st October 2022. The applications were scrutinized and evaluated. The ground truthing of the shortlisted applications was carried out by the Central Water Commission and Central Ground Water Board after which 41 winners, including joint winners covering all 11 categories have been selected for awards.
