New Delhi: Union Minister for Water Resources Uma Bharti on Thursday has stressed on the need for maintaining India’s vast dam resources in safe condition.
Inaugurating a workshop on lessons learnt from the ongoing Dam Rehabilitation and Improvement Project (DRIP) in New Delhi today, Bharti said that before releasing excess water from dams, appropriate precautions needed to be taken and people downstream should be warned to ensure their preparedness to reduce the consequences and prevent loss of life.
She commended the good work being done under the ongoing dam rehabilitation and improvement project and exhorted all state governments to identify the dams which are in need of rehabilitation and take appropriate actions to ensure their safety and operational performance.
While referring to the abundance of water resources in India, Bharti said, “We are not fully harnessing these resources and even our existing dams are not operating at their optimal efficiency”.
She also emphasized the need for exploring the tourism potential of our existing dams and exploit the same.
Bharti also launched the Hindi version of DRIP Website: www.damsafety.in. on the occasion and released a compendium of technical papers pertaining to the Second National Dam Safety Conference organised in Bengaluru between January 12 and 13 this year.
‘Guidelines for Preparation of Emergency Action Plans for Dams’ prepared under DRIP to facilitate development of emergency action plans for all dams was also released by the minister on the occasion. (ANI)