A leading water expert has questioned the government’s report on ‘Auditing of Irrigation Projects in Maharashtra State’ considering the lack of a ‘water budget’. Pradeep Purandare, a water expert and former professor at Water and Land Management Institute (WALMI) has written to the chief auditor pointing out that, “water audit at present has become a farce in absence of water budget, measurement of water, area irrigated and other relevant parameters including water account at irrigation division.”Water auditing is being done since 2003-04 and this is the fourteenth report where analysis and evaluation of available data on 2504 projects is being conducted. Instead of stating this well-known fact, the water audit report states that ‘in spite of constant persuasion the field officers have not mentioned PIP figures in WA template’,” said the letter. “In fact, it becomes an exercise in futility because the very purpose of water audit – accounting for every drop of water – gets defeated. It has also pointed out that no water audit reports were prepared on time from 2012 to 2016.

Source: The Hindu April 30, 2019 19:20 UTC