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Updated October 29th, 2021 at 09:37 IST

Ex-Maha CM Fadnavis claims 'govt gave clean chit to Jalyukt Shivar'; MVA says 'Probe on'

On Wednesday, ex-CM Devendra Fadnavis claimed that the state govt's committee has given a clean chit to his flagship scheme Jalyukt Shivar, MVA counters

Maharashtra, Jalyukt shivar
IMAGE: PTI/Pixabay | Image:self
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On Wednesday, ex-CM Devendra Fadnavis claimed that the state govt's committee has given a clean chit to his flagship scheme Jalyukt Shivar. Addressing reporters he said that previously a High Court committee had lauded the benefits of the scheme and the state govt's committee has done the same. Stating that he would support a probe into some of the issues into the scheme, he said that the entire scheme must not be thrown away.

Fadnavis: 'Clean chit to Jalyukt Shivar'

"Jalayukta Shivar is a scheme implemented by the people and the people. The same thing was said by a committee of experts set up by the High Court across the country. So to discredit the whole plan which benefited 6 lakh jobs is wrong. If there are any issues in the plan, those must be probed." When asked about the corruption allegations in the scheme, he said, " I think govt itself has answered that today".

Countering Fadnavis, Shiv Sena, via its mouthpiece Saamana claimed that the probe was still on and no clean chit had been given to the Fadnavis-era scheme. The government has issued a statement stating that anomalies had been observed in almost 71% of the works done under the scheme. The final report of the four-committee panel is yet to be tabled. The MVA govt had constituted the SIT last year following a Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report claimed that the scheme had  limited impact inspite of its Rs 9633.75 crore spending.

CAG report on Jalyukt Shivar

The CAG report said that a sum of Rs 9,633.75 crore was spent on the scheme, but had little impact in achieving water neutrality and increasing groundwater levels. The report added that there was a “lack of transparency” in the execution of works and inadequate monitoring by the state water conservation department. The project involved deepening and widening of streams, construction of cement and earthen stop dams, undertaking work on nullahs and digging of farm ponds to make 5000 villages drought-free.

The report stated that the scheme catered to 22,586 villages and 6.41 lakh works were undertaken in all, of which 98 percent or 6.3 lakh works were completed at a cost of Rs 9,633.75 crore. After studying 120 villages, the report found that the storage created in 83 villages was not sufficient to meet the water requirement. Moreover, 37 of these 83 villages suffered shortage due to less storage created than planned - more than 20% less.

Jalyukt Shivar

The Jalyukt Shivar set an ambitious target of making 5,000 drought-prone villages free of water scarcity by 2019. Under this scheme, various water conservation initiatives such as the construction of farm ponds, rejuvenation of water storage capacity, building decentralised water bodies and so forth were undertaken. The scheme has been stalled after the first phase of the scheme expired on December 31, 2019.

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Published October 29th, 2021 at 09:27 IST

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