Bengaluru: Today (March 22) is World Water Day. 

On the occasion, Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the 'Jal Shakti Abhiyan: Catch the Rain' campaign in a bid to conserve water through a participatory approach.

"The campaign will be implemented from March 22 to November 30 November - the pre-monsoon and monsoon period in the country. It will be launched as a Jan Andolan to take water conservation at the grass-root level through people's participation. 
It is intended to nudge all stakeholders to create rainwater harvesting structures suitable to the climatic conditions and subsoil strata, to ensure proper storage of rainwater," the statement said.

Other than the launching of the campaign, Prime Minister Modi will witness the signing of the Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) between the Union Minister of Jal Shakti and the Chief Ministers of Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh to implement the Ken Betwa Link Project, the first project of the National Perspective Plan for interlinking of rivers.


This project involves transfer of water from the Ken to the Betwa River through the construction of Daudhan Dam and a canal linking the two rivers. It will provide annual irrigation of 10.62 lakh hectare, drinking water supply to about 62 lakh people and also generate 103 MegaWatt of hydropower. The Project will be of immense benefit to the water starved region of Bundelkhand, especially to the districts of Panna, Tikamgarh, Chhatarpur, Sagar, Damoh, Datia, Vidisha, Shivpuri and Raisen of Madhya Pradesh and Banda, Mahoba, Jhansi and Lalitpur of Uttar Pradesh.

It will pave the way for more interlinking of river projects to ensure that scarcity of water does not become an inhibitor for development in the country. The campaign will be undertaken across the country in both rural and urban areas. It will be launched as a Jan Andolan to take water conservation at grass-root level through people’s participation.