JSA II: Catch the Rain Awareness Generation Campaign

December 24, 2020

The Jal Shakti Abhiyan II: Catch the Rain Awareness Generation Campaign was recently launched in New Delhi. The campaign was launched by National Water Mission. It was launched under Ministry of Jal Shakti, Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports and Nehru Yuva Kendra Sangathan.

About the Campaign

The Campaign focuses on water conservation and rainwater harvesting.
It will alert the stakeholders to create rain water harvesting structures suitable to climatic conditions.
The campaign will cover 623 districts under phase II of Jal Shakti Abhiyan.
It will hold meetings with local influencers.
The tag line of the Catch the Rain Campaign is “Catch the rain, where it falls, when it falls”.

Activities suggested by the campaign

The campaign will encourage the stakeholders to create Rain Water Harvesting structures that are suitable to sub soil strata to store rain water. It is important because, the rain water falling in four to five months are the only source of water for most parts of the country. The following activities are to be encouraged during the Catch the Rain awareness campaign:

Drives to create water harvesting pits
Roof top Rain Water Harvesting Systems and check dams
Removal of encroachments
De-silting of tanks to increase their storage capacity;
Removal of obstructions in the channels which bring water to the tanks and storage ponds from the catchment areas
repairs to traditional water harvesting structures like step-wells
Using defunct bore-wells and old wells to put the water back to aquifers

Jal Shakti Abhiyan II

The Jal Shakti Abhiyan was planned in two phases. The Phase I was planned between July and September, 2019 covering all the states. The phase II was to focus on states with retreating monsoon. This includes Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Puducherry. It mainly aims to accelerate five major water conservation areas. They are as follows: