Institutional Mechanism with Integrated Data for Sustainable Water

Fresh water demand is exponentially increasing due to the increase in population and social developmental activities. Tamil Nadu being water Deficit State is facing difficulty in time and space to meet the growing sectoral water demands. With average rainfall of 911.60mm the total available water potential in Tamil Nadu is 1664 TMC. Effective Management and Augmentation are the need of the hour to manage this water scarce scenario. A spatial and temporal data base on the water resources available and sectoral demand, is what is required for better planning on augmentation of the water resources through rehabilitation/formation of storage facility to facilitate water availability to meet the growing sectoral demands and integrated functioning of all the line departments through their interventions in the same area for better service delivery to achieve more crop per drop of water. This will improve the livelihood status of the end beneficiaries of the projects. Major interventions like Drip application envisaging savings in water and more crop per drop of water, familiarizing SRI Techniques, transporting facility for marketing, facilities like marketing go downs, e-market facility, last mile connectivity, mobile veterinary units, are needed to improve the socio economic status of the society.

State Water Resources Management Agency (SWaRMA) is functioning since 06.09.2011, to advise the Government on all water related subjects. Unlike the Authority envisaged by National Water Policy to merely allot and collect water tariff, in Tamil Nadu to manage the available precious water potential to the optimum, SWaRMA has come out with a strong e-Governance tool, with inter-Sectorial common data base “TN WRIS” which is a GIS based web enabled one. The data base will help in decision making for efficient integrated water resources management and regulation for better service delivery. This data base will be a comprehensive solution for accessing water data, capable of geo-visualization and will help the administrators with e-Governance tool in the management and Basin planning of water resources and in taking Tamil Nadu forward to optimise the utilisation of created potential and to maximise crop production per unit of water. With continues training and updating of state of art of the subject and any modification in the database, if required, can be effected by Public Works Department since database has been created in-house by Tamil Nadu Public Works Department officials with open source softwares.