Fadnavis slams govt for blocking funds to Jalyukt Shivar, calls it a 'people's movement'

Speaking at a gathering in Akluj town in Solapur district on Sunday, former Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis castigated the Maha Vikas Aghadi government for putting a stay on the Jalyukt Shivar Abhiyan programme. The scheme was launched during Fadnavis’ tenure as the Maharashtra CM in December 2014. Mentioning that more than half of the state did not have access to irrigation, he noted that the aforesaid scheme had achieved a lot. Fadnavis contended that it was impossible to stop Jalyukt Shivar as it had become a “people’s movement”.

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The Jalyukt Shivar Abhiyan

Hundreds of villages in regions such as Vidarbha and Marathwada often tend to experience droughts for years together. The Jalyukt Shivar set an ambitious target of making 5,000 drought-prone villages free of water scarcity. Under this scheme, various water conservation initiatives such as the construction of farm ponds, rejuvenation of water storage capacity, building decentralised water bodies and so forth were undertaken. However, the then opposition parties cast aspersion over the success of this scheme and alleged irregularities.  

Stay on key decisions

Since taking oath as the Chief Minister, Uddhav Thackeray has been accused by the opposition of reversing key decisions of the previous government. For instance, he ordered an immediate stay on the construction of the Mumbai Metro 3 car shed in Aarey forest. At present, the Maharashtra government has refused to release funds for the pending works in Nashik, Dhule, Jalgaon, Nandurbar and Ahmednagar district under the Jalyukt Shivar scheme.

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