National Hydrology Project

The union cabinet has cleared the Rs.3,679-crore National Hydrology Project (NHP) that aims to collect hydro-metrological data across India and use it for efficient water management in the country.

Key features:

The project intends to set up a system for timely and reliable water resource data acquisition, storage, collation and management.

• The NHP will cover the entire country, unlike earlier hydrology projects that covered only 13 states.
• It also seeks to build capacity of state and central organisations in water resource management through the use of information systems and adoption of state-of-the-art technologies like remote sensing.
• The project is expected to assist in promoting “efficient and equitable” use of water, especially groundwater, down to the village level and provide information on quality of water as well.
• The NHP will also help in gathering hydro-meteorological data which will be stored and analysed on a real-time basis and can be seamlessly accessed by any user at the state, district or village-level.

Benefits:

• The scheme will help address the water crisis in the country. The project will inform the public about how much water is available and assist farmers in planning their crops and other farm-related activities.
• It will increase lead time in flood forecast from one day to at least three days.
• It will also facilitate mapping of flood inundation areas for use by disaster management authorities.
• It will also help improve Reservoir operations through seasonal yield forecast and drought management.
• The NHP will lead to better assessment of surface and ground water resources in a river basin for better planning and allocation of resources, improve reservoir operations through seasonal yield forecast and improve drought management.

Funding:

Half of the total NHP project outlay would come from a World Bank loan and would be repaid by the central government, while the remaining 50% would be in the form of budgetary support from the centre. The central funds would be passed on as grants to states and central organizations undertaking it.