State Cabinet here on Wednesday took several important decisions. It decided to constitute Madhya Pradesh Water Corporation (MPWC) for implementation of group piped water schemes in rural area. The corporation will avail loans under prescribed procedure to run these schemes and other fiscal management. The Corporation will implement piped drinking water as well as sewage schemes in the urban areas as per requirement and supplying drinking water to families through water connections.

If the Census figures are anything to go by, the dry plateau regions of Satara have been witnessing a slow but steady migration. In fact, the persistent drought conditions in the region have been driving people out ever since British times, say activists, adding that the lack of corrective measures post-Independence are only keeping the momentum going.

It is mostly caused by deliberate neglect and designed failure of the way we manage water and land

It’s drought time again. Nothing new in this announcement. Each year, first we have crippling droughts between December and June, and then devastating floods in the next few months. It’s a cycle of despair, which is more or less predictable. But this is not an inevitable cycle of nature we must live with.

To provide value-addition in farming activities and arrest the falling farm incomes in the district, the Department of Agriculture is set to introduce ‘Integrated Farming System' practices on a commercial basis in the entire 13 blocks.

The integrated system is the concept of judicious mixing of poultry, mushroom cultivation, fisheries, agro-forestry, goat/cow rearing and sericulture along with the main agricultural crop cultivation on a unit area which could help bring prosperity to farming.

The Sunderbans, spreading across Bangladesh and West Bengal, is fast emerging as the climate change flashpoint of the globe. Despite the warning signals of increased frequency of cyclones and tidal floods. The West Bengal government has drawn up a massive project to expand the Haldia port which will directly impact the western Sunderbans region.
Environmentalists already complain against increasing oil spillage from vessels in and around the Mongia Port that are adversely affecting its biodiversity.

BALANGIR: Infamous for starvation deaths, migration and poverty, Bangomunda block in Balangir district is reeling under water crisis. The scorching heat and drying water bodies are not only taking a toll on the humans, but have impacted the animals as well. The Undeer, Arjuni and Bhuasenjoar Nullah hardly have water and the groundwater has depleted substantially leaving the tubewells defunct.