India has committed more than USD 240 billion in investments to the water sector and is currently carrying out the largest dam rehabilitation programme in the world, India’s water minister, Gajendra Singh Shekhawat said at the UN.
“We have committed investments of more than 240 billion dollars in the water sector through government resources, in partnership with private innovators, start-ups, and water-user associations. India is implementing two flagship missions to ensure universal access to sanitation and drinking water,” Shekhawat said in the UN General Assembly.
“Clean water and sanitation for all”, the Sustainable Development Goal 6, is one of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals adopted by the The United Nations General Assembly in 2015.
In order to develop vital water storage infrastructure for enhancing climate resilience, India is carrying out the largest dam restoration programme in the world.
India is among the largest users of groundwater in the world, Shekhawat said. “However, today we are making efforts to restore groundwater level and create mindful communities by combining demand and supply side interventions through village Water Security Plans, inculcating behavioural changes on water usage and conservation at the grass-root level, financing these plans through incentives and convergence of existing programmes,” he added.
He also talked about India’s Clean India Mission milestone, which was reached in 2019 when the country was declared open defecation free. “In our journey to achieve SDG 6.2, since 2014 we have built over 105 million toilets, and transformed sanitation habits through mass scale behaviour change of more than 600 million Indians,” he said.
