Devendra Fadnavis is the architect of the new Maharashtra; even his political opponents would admit it, though not in public. The state has been on a development spree since he took over the reins for the first time in 2014. The citizens are experiencing positive changes through his reformative steps and landmark initiatives, improving their lives in many ways. Of the many nicknames Fadnavis is called, referring to his focus on development in different areas, a special one is ‘Waterman.’ Given the acute water scarcity in large parts of the state, the nickname ‘Waterman’ carries special significance as it recognizes his relentless and all-out efforts to overcome drought, facilitate irrigation, and provide drinking water to homes across the state through an ambitious Jal Samruddhi Yojana, which no other leader has ever done in the history of Maharashtra. This article will try to catch how Devendra Fadnavis’ water development projects became people’s movements to overcome drought and make Maharashtra water-sufficient.
Mountainous challenge and a resolute CM seeking a sustainable solution
The 2014 assembly election saw an overwhelming victory for Fadnavis to become the CM, but with an overwhelming challenge to deal with. The state was reeling under drought in most parts from the preceding low-rain years. The villages were devastated by parched lands and an acute shortage of drinking water. Farmers committing suicide to avoid loan payments became common. Devendra Fadnavis decided to take on the situation with long-term and sustainable measures, very unlike his predecessors, who resorted mainly to loan waivers for the farmers without going to the root of the problem. The Jalyukta Shivar Abhiyan was launched on January 26, 2016, a colossal project based on water conservation principles.
The severe water scarcity and agricultural problems in Maharashtra are partly natural and partly man-made. We all know the rain shadow climatic conditions in the state, resulting from the Sahyadri mountain range. However, years of neglect, bad planning, and biased politics are equally responsible for further aggravating the situation by drying up the reservoirs, canals, and other water sources, reducing the groundwater level, which led to droughts every year, shattering the rural economy in Maharashtra.
Any boil takes time to grow; the origin of the drought can be traced back to the period from 2004 to 2014. This period is known as the most corrupt regime in the history of India, which saw many scams coming up one after another. Sharad Pawar, who was the agriculture minister at the center, with his party as the coalition partner in the ruling alliances in the state, doomed the future of agriculture in Maharashtra with scams, corruption, and wrong policies. The farmers of Maharashtra were trapped in a vicious cycle of lack of irrigation, continuous crop failure resulting from it, and piling up of debts due to crop failure. During this period, the highest number of farmer suicides occurred in Maharashtra. Be it the Koyna basin or other irrigation projects, this period saw all the money for irrigation spent in Western Maharashtra alone, and that too in an arbitrary and corrupt manner, only benefiting his vote banks. The Mangaon and Khatav regions, despite being in western Maharashtra, remained deprived of irrigation for a long time.
The beginning of a solution came through the verdict of the people in 2014, electing the Narendra Modi-led BJP for both the center and the state of Maharashtra, which saw Devendra Fadnavis, hand-picked by Modi, taking oath as the Chief Minister. The very first action Devendraji took in the battle against drought was to revive water irrigation projects in the villages immediately. For this, he ordered a thorough study of the irrigation projects in the state, which were sent to cold storage by the previous government. The study found atrocious increases in the costs and lengthy execution time for the projects that were stalled during the Congress-NCP regime. For example, the ambitious irrigation project ‘Gosekhurd’ in Vidarbha was left incomplete by the Congress-NCP for 3 decades, due to which the cost of this project increased tremendously from Rs 372 crores to Rs 18,495 crores in 34 years. Therefore, the only option left with the new government to provide water to the farmers’ fields in a short time and at a low cost was to promote micro-irrigation through water conservation methods.
This prompted Devendraji to seek the help of experts like Rajendra Singh, Anna Hazare, Popatrao Pawar, etc., who have done significant work in water conservation and are famous as ‘Jal Purush.’ From the advice and discussions with the experts who have seen the process of deterioration of fertile lands into drought-prone lands, emerged the concept of ‘Jalyukta Shivar Abhiyan,’ which was announced on December 5, 2014, and went on to become a people’s movement. Later, some celebrities like Aamir Khan and Nana Patekar were also associated with this campaign, and soon, an unprecedented water revolution took place in Maharashtra in just 4 years.
The 7 main objectives of the Jalyukta Shivar Abhiyan were:
- To store runoff water from rainfall at the village outskirts and increase the groundwater level.
- To increase the efficiency of water conservation and water use for agriculture by increasing the irrigation area of the state, and to create sustainability of providing sufficient water to all.
- To implement the Ground Water Act and create decentralized water reservoirs.
- To undertake new works that create water storage capacity.
- To increase the storage capacity of existing and defunct dams, village ponds, percolation ponds, cement dams, etc.
- To increase water storage by removing silt from water sources through public participation.
- To generate public awareness against the wastage of water and about the benefits of tree plantation.
With these seven primary goals, projects were launched for the desilting of rivers, streams, canals, and dams. During this period, another scheme of Devendraji became very popular, which was ‘Maagel Tyla Shettale’. Under this scheme, many farmers received financial helps from the government to dig ponds to store rainwater for the irrigation of their farmlands. Seeing the immense public support for Jalyukta Shivar, the opponents who initially questioned the success of this scheme and made baseless allegations went on the back foot. The hard work of the government, administration, and the public to restore fertility through water conservation and irrigation bore fruit in the very first rain, as the rivers, streams, and farm ponds were filled brim to brim. The entire Maharashtra was filled with water and greenery. As many as 39 lakh hectares of agricultural land in the state became irrigated due to Jalyukta Shivar. This great campaign was carried out in 22,593 villages with 6,32,896 units of work completed, turning 20,544 villages water-rich. Success stories of water-rich Maharashtra started appearing in the media every day with pictures of farmers in tears of joy. The success of ‘Jalyukta Shivar Abhiyan’ began to spread to other states and also beyond the boundaries of the country. Prime Minister Modi also praised this scheme and Devendra Fadnavis in an episode of ‘Mann Ki Baat.’ A few other states also began following the ‘Jalyukt Shivar’ model.
The 2019 election arrived. People voted overwhelmingly for Narendra Modi as the PM and Devendraji as the CM once again. However, the coalition partner Uddhav Thackeray ditched Devendraji and made a new coalition with the Congress and NCP to become the chief minister. A government, called the MVA, formed an immoral alliance, going against the wish of the people of Maharashtra. Not only did he become the Chief Minister, but Uddhav Thackeray also started suspending every ambitious scheme of Devendraji, including the Jalyukta Shivar Abhiyan program, on false corruption charges in the scheme. The Thackeray government was so desperate to stop the popular scheme of Jalyukta Shivar that it created a fabricated narrative that there were irregularities in 5000 works. But the Thackeray government, belatedly, realized that finding irregularities in only 5,000 works out of 6,32,896 works done through public participation would mean making mountains out of molehills, and therefore, it called off any further inquiry on this matter.
The MVA government was short-lived. On June 30, 2022, Maharashtra politics took a dramatic turn with Uddhab Thackeray’s party being ripped through to cause the immediate fall of the MVA government and the return of BJP to power in coalition with a new and stronger faction of Shiv Sena under Eknath Shinde. While Eknath Shinde was made the CM in the new establishment, Devendraji, took oath as Deputy Chief Minister with responsibilities of home and finance. In no time, all his earlier projects, abandoned by the Uddhav Thackeray government, were back on track. The latest examples are the compensation and grants paid to the farmers before Diwali, the inauguration of new corridors of Samruddhi Highway, and the test run of Metro 3. As for the Jalyukta Shivar Abhiyan, Devendraji announced the reinstatement of the scheme as JSA 2.0 in the cabinet meeting held on Tuesday, December 13, 2022. The JSA 2.0 water conservation works will be resumed in the remaining eligible villages of the Watershed Area Development Mission, turning the rest of Maharashtra fertile and water-rich.
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