World Water Day, 2023 celebrated in DoWR

‘Accelerating change to solve the water and sanitation crisis’

Water Communication Strategy, ‘Urmi, other IT applications PINSYS and Water Dox launched

22th March 2023 (Odisha Tazanews) Bhubaneswar :- The Department of Water Resources, Odisha as observed the World Water Day at DoWR Conference Hall, Rajeev Bhawan, Bhubaneswar today. The theme of this day this year is ‘Accelerating change to solve the water and sanitation crisis’.
The programme was graced by Hon’ble Minister, Water Resources, Commerce & Transport Smt. Tukuni Sahu and led by the Development Commissioner-cumAdditional Chief Secretary, DoWR, Smt. Anu Garg.

Series of activities have been carried out by Department of Water Resources, Odisha on the eve of celebration of World Water Day. A Water Communication Strategy, ‘Urmi’& other IT applications have been launched today by Hon’ble Minister Smt. Sahu. ‘Urmi’ , has been developed after a series of consultations held with key stakeholders, including the PRI members ; Pani Panchayat members ; farmers ; state officials ; adolescents; Jal Sahayaks, sanitation volunteers, SHGs and other frontline workers and civil society organizations to get behavioural insights from the key players associated with water management at the institutional, community and household levels. Besides, IT applications such as PINSYS and WaterDox have been launched today. While PINSYS is a robust database of WR Engineers for effective HRM, WaterDox is a web enabled interface to store documents and legacy data of the Department in digital form to be accessible to users for official purpose. Further, one Booklet on Jal Shakti Abhiyaan 2.0 has been released. On this occasion, the Roof Rain-Water Harvesting Structure (RRHS) in Rajiv Bhawan also dedicated by Hon’ble Minister.

Speaking on the occasion, Hon’ble Minister, Water Resources and Commerce & Transport explained that, “Water is a precious resource and plays a major role in the evolution of human societies. Water nurtures and nourishes life on the planet. The Communication Strategy and the IT initiatives will ensure greater involvement of the community in water management and participation in conservation initiatives in the state. The Development Commissioner- cum- Additional Chief Secretary, Water Resources Smt. Garg mentioned that the Department has chosen the World Water Day to introduce the game-changing initiatives to bring the people closer to governance and to get them involved in the process. Among others, Principal Secretary, Panchayatiraj & Drinking Water Department Shri Sushil Kumar Lohani, Commissioner-cum-Secretary, Women & Child Development Department Smt Subha Sarma, Chairman, Odisha Lift Irrigation Corporation Ltd.

Shri Amaresh Patri, OIC Chief , UNICEF Dr. Meena Som and other dignitaries also were present in the programme and spoke about the prudent use of water, availability of safe drinking water and awareness required at all level for sustainable water conservation and management. The EIC,DoWR Er. Bhakta Ranjan Mohanty offered votes thanks to all the guests and participants. Among others, senior officers of DoWR, representatives from World Bank, UNDP & UNICEF were present on the occasion. The Department of Water Resources is engaged in sustainable development and management of water resources in the State over the years. A series of 5T initiatives have been introduced to provide better service to the public. The success of these interventions, however, will always be gauged by the awareness they have generated in the community on prudent water use, equity in water distribution, inclusion of women in water governance, participatory irrigation management, water conservation efforts, climate resilient agriculture etc.

Besides, a series of IT initiatives have been introduced by the Department to showcase how technology could bring in transparency and transformation and ensure ease of transaction in the Department. They are: Water ERP for irrigation management, project monitoring and flood forecasting; PROMISe for expediting procurement work ; e-CAD application software for tracking CAD and PIM activities ; Ama Jalashaya portal, covering all the water bodies for planning water use for multiple purposes.