Jal Shakti Abhiyan

Background and evolution

The campaign also built on earlier successful local efforts, such as watershed work at Ralegan Siddhi and Hiware Bazar in Maharashtra, and the revival of johads in Rajasthan's Alwar district by community groups, which showed that villages could restore dry rivers and wells through collective action.

India has about 18% of the world's population but only around 4% of its freshwater resources. It is also the world's largest user of groundwater, which supplies most rural drinking water and much of irrigation. In many districts, water tables have fallen sharply because extraction exceeds recharge. Traditional systems such as tanks, johads, stepwells and kunds, which once captured monsoon rain, have silted up or been encroached as piped supply and borewells spread.

Jal Shakti Abhiyan was designed as a "Jan Andolan", or people's movement, to restore this capacity. Rather than building large dams, it focuses on many small interventions close to where rain falls. Central officers were deputed to districts in the first phase to work with local administrations, and the campaign set targets for structures and plantations. This page looks at the campaign as a convergence and behaviour-change model for demand-side water management, distinct from the Jal Jeevan Mission, which builds supply systems.