Why in News?

=> In the presence of Rajasthan Water Supply and Ground Water Minister Dr. Mahesh Joshi, MoU was signed in relation to training programs for capacity enhancement of officers and employees of various departments in the state under Atal Bhujal Yojana at the Government Secretariat.

Key Points:

=> This MoU was signed by State Project Management Unit (SPMU) of Atal Bhujal Yojana and Project Director Suraj Bhan Singh on behalf of Ground Water Department and Director General Rajendra Pareek on behalf of IMTI, Kota.

=> Under this MoU, 56 training programs will be organized in Rajasthan in 2021-22 and 336 in 2022-23 by IMTI, Kota at the state, district, block and gram panchayat level, on which about Rs 1.63 crore will be spent.

=> These training programs will be conducted by Irrigation Management and Training Institute-IMTI, Kota in the current and next financial year.

=> It is worth mentioning that the Atal Bhujal Yojana is being implemented in 38 Panchayat Samiti areas in 17 districts of the state on about 2 lakh hectares of land.

• This will benefit about 1.55 lakh farmers.

=> In this scheme the main objective has been set to encourage management and prevention of falling groundwater level through promotion of rain water conservation and its equitable use, by the schemes of agriculture, horticulture, catchment and soil conservation, water resources, rural development and panchayati raj, public health engineering, forest, energy and groundwater departments.

=> Two components have been directly included in the Atal Bhujal Yojana, one is sustainable groundwater management through institutional strengthening and capacity building, and the other is sustainable groundwater management through community participation by promoting innovations along with coordination of various schemes of the center and the state.

=> Under the first component, these trainings will be organized for the successful implementation of the scheme.