GS 2 : Governance -Ministries & Departments Of The Government

Why in News?

Fulfilling its poll promise, the government has launched a new unified ‘Jal Shakti’ ministry that is aimed at providing clean drinking water as well as fight India’s water woes.

Jal Shakti Ministry:

• The new ministry has been formed by merging the Ministry of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation and Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation.
• All water related works will be merged under one ministry.
• The new ministry will encompass issues ranging from providing clean drinking water, international and inter-states water disputes, to the Namami Gange project aimed at cleaning Gang and its tributaries, and sub tributaries.

Why such move?

• All water projects are complementary to each other. It’s good to have one ministry to have an integrated data management system.
• In two separate ministries, there was no integration and one will not know where the gap is.
• The need of the hour is the creation of water availability data from various resources on both quality and quantity at one platform