ITANAGAR, Sep 19: PHE&WS Secretary Rinchin Tashi informed that the state has 652 critical and 650 sub-critical water resources which are on the verge of drying, and asked all the field engineers to learn new scientific methods to revive the drying spring sources through spring shed development units.
Tashi said this while addressing a virtual meeting conducted by Pune (Maharashtra)-based People Science Institute (PSI) on the topic, ‘Spring shed development/management for drinking water source sustainability’, which began here on Friday.
The PSI has been assigned partnership with the state Jal Jeevan Mission through an MoU for imparting training to the field engineers of the PHE&WS department.
Underlining the need for training in spring shed development in the context of Arunachal, Tashi stated that 90 percent of the state’s people are dependent on spring sources for their drinking water requirement and for agricultural and other purpose.
“There has been abundance of spring water sources inherited from the past but now this abundance is gradually turning into scarcity due to immense pressure on underground mountain aquifer because of climate change, seismic activity, environmental degradation and change in land use pattern more towards infrastructural development,” the secretary said.
He encouraged all the field engineers to take full advantage of the training and develop new scientific methods of planning, designing, monitoring and evaluation.
