NITI Aayog to Release Water Management Index at District Level

New Delhi, Dec 4 (PTI) NITI Aayog has decided that data for some of the key performance indicators (KPIs) will be collected at district level for release of a combined report of Composite Water Management Index 6.0 (CWMI), Parliament was informed on Monday.

In a written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha, Minister of State for Planning Rao Inderjit Singh said NITI Aayog has been publishing CWMI since 2018.

So far, two editions -- CWMI (June 2018) and CWMI 2.0 (August 2019)-- have been published. Subsequent edition of CWMI was prepared in August 2022 with delay due to the nationwide Covid-19 situation.

"After due deliberations with the concerned ministries and departments, the scope of CWMI was extended up to district levels, and to increase the data granularity, it was decided that data for some of the KPIs will be collected at district level.

"Therefore, it was ideated that a combined report of editions up to CWMI 6.0 should be released," he said.

According to the minister, it was also decided that other channels need to be explored to take the task of indexing rather than relying only on CWMI; and there is a need to make data and its analysis more useful or applied in planning, decision making, policy formulation or research by public or private stakeholders concerned with the water sector.

Views of the ministry/departments have been sought in this regard, he added.

Replying to another question, Singh said the average annual water availability of any region or country is largely dependent upon hydro-meteorological and geological factors.

"For India, per capita water availability is reducing primarily due to increase in population. The average annual per capita water availability has been assessed as 1,545 cubic meters in 2011 and 1,486 cubic meters in 2021," he said.

NITI Aayog in 2018 and 2019 had ranked all states on the composite water management, comprising 9 broad sectors with 28 different indicators covering various aspects of ground water, restoration of water bodies, irrigation, farm practices, drinking water, policy and governance.