India, Israel inked MoU on water conservation: Govt

New Delhi: The government has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Israel to enhance cooperation on water conservation in India, Parliament was informed today.

In a written reply, Minister of State for Drinking Water and Sanitation S S Ahluwalia told the Rajya Sabha that the ministry has signed an MoU with the Ministry of Energy of the State of Israel on ‘National Campaign for Water Conservation in India’.

“As per this MoU, both sides would work to enhance cooperation at the national, regional and international level to design, implement and monitor a professionally designed National Water Conservation Campaign in India to put water conservation on to the national agenda,” he said.

The national-level campaign would also encourage citizens to save water in everyday life and make them realise that water requires conservation, Ahluwalia said.

The campaign would be initiated at the earliest grades in schools to generate awareness and promote reuse, recharge and recycling of water, he said.

On a question about allotment of funds and expenditure incurred by the government in the last two years for water conservation programmes, he said funds for the specific programme can be “dovetailed from national schemes like Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Schemes, Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchai Yojna”.