People join the campaign across state to make it a success

On the call of Chief Minister Smt. Vasundhara Raje, the people of Rajasthan burst up to join the Mukhyamantri Jal Swavlamban Abhiyan on Wednesday. The CM herself held a spade and a flagon at village Gardan Kheri in Jhalawar district to launch this ambitious state-wide campaign for water conservation.

As the CM led the crusade, general public from all across the state gave an overwhelming response and joined her campaign with body, mind and wealth. In Jhalawar alone, within a few hours of the CM’s call, people contributed over Rs 7 crore for this.

Smt. Raje started this Abhiyan amid chants of vaidik mantras and all-religion prayers at Gardan Kheri village. The campaign simaltaneously started at 3,529 villages in the state. She herself did shramdan at Chechi waterpond of the village for half an hour. During this, she dug soil with a spade and threw it on the banks of pond by transporting it on her head in a flagon.

On the CM’s appeal religious leaders, public representatives, officials-employees and general public extended their support to the campaign. All ranks and files of Rajasthan Police announced to donate one-day salary of theirs for Jal Abhiyan. She said that if people continue to support this movement, the dream of making Rajasthan a self-sufficient state in water would come true.

Smt. Raje said that Mukhyamantri Jal Swavlamban Abhiyan would lead Rajasthan to a water revolution. This would change the famine and droughts in the state to happy times. Through this campaign of developing watershed structures, the dream of linking rivers visualised by former Prime Minister Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee had started taking shape in Rajasthan, she said. She stated that with such development works of Jal Swavlamban, drought-affected 8 districts of Maharashtra had become self-sufficient in water. “But, we have to make the whole state self-sufficient,” she asserted.

The CM said that the works of developing watershed structures, which started on Wednesday, would be completed by June 30 and it would start benefitting the state by next year. She thanked religious leaders, public representatives, officials-employees and media alongwith the people of entire Rajasthan, for their response to her call.

Prior to this, Smt. Raje sought blessings of religious leaders for this campaign. Swami Divyanand Teerth of Jyotirmath Avantar Peeth Bhanpura, Madhya Pradesh; Yuvacharya Gyananand Teerth of Shankaracharya Peeth Bhanpura; Father Thomas of Jhalwar; Gyani Pritam Singh of Mangalpura Jhalwara; City Qazi Mufti Amiruddin of Pirawa conducted religious prayers on the spot.

During this, the CM distributed funds worth over 50 crores for various government welfare schemes to 6,758 beneficiaries. She also announced that seven panchayats of Jhalawar district had been declared Open Defecation Free (ODF). She thanked the sarpanches and other representatives of these panchayats for this achievement.
District in-charge Minister Shri Yunus Khan, Member of Parliament Shri Dushyant Singh, Chairperson of Public Grievances Redressal Committee Shri Srikrishan Patidar, MLAs Shri Narendra Nagar and Shri Ramchandra Sunariwal, Zila Pramukh Tina Kumari Bheel, Social activist Shri Shyamsundar Sharma, public representatives of Panchayati Raj Institutions, office-bearers of different organizations and dignitaries were also present.

Jaipur/Jhalawar, 27 January 2016