Virtual training explores spring shed development in Arunachal Pradesh

ITANAGAR: A virtual training is exploring ways and means to manage spring shed development. This training is being conducted — twice a week till November 2020 — by the resource person of PSI (People Science Institute), Dehradun, which has the expertise in spring shed development.

Participating in the programme, Arunachal Pradesh Secretary of Public Health Engineering & Water Supply (PHE&WS) Department Rinchin Tashi attended the virtual training on 'Spring Shed Development and Management for Drinking Water Source Sustainability' conducted by the PSI, Dehradun on Saturday.

The PSI, Dehradun, has been assigned as a partnership with Arunachal's 'Jal Jeevan Mission' (JJM) through an MoU (Memorandum of Understanding) for imparting training to the field engineers of PHE&WS Department of the State.

Addressing the virtual training, Tashi underlined the need for such training in a mountainous State like Arunachal Pradesh, where about 90% of its people are dependent on spring sources for their drinking-water requirement and for agricultural and other purposes.

Pointing out that though there has been an abundance of spring water sources inherited from the past yet now this abundance has gradually turned into scarcity due to the immense pressure on underground mountain aquifers because of climate change, seismic activity, environmental degradation and the changed inland water-use pattern tilted towards infrastructural development.

"There are 652 critical and 650 subcritical water resources across the State which is on the verge of drying or dying," he said while encouraging the field engineers to learn the new methods and techniques of science-based planning, designing, monitoring, and evaluation through the training, he added.

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