Report by Orissadiary correspondent; Bhubaneswar: Chief secretary Ajit Tripathy on Thursday stressed on water conservation and watershed management in public private community partnership (PPCP) to meet the growing needs of water for drinking, irrigation and industrial units.

Addressing a conference on water management organized by the State chapter of the CII here, Tripathy, while citing the example of the Rajasthan Community Business Alliance on Water, an initiative by the government of Rajasthan to solve water crisis in PPCP mode, urged the industries to examine with the government whether the model can be replicated in the state.

He said that the state has identified nine multipurpose river valley projects for irrigation and hydro-power generation projects that would give rise to rehabilitation and resettlement problems.

He stressed upon remodeling of Pani Panchayat rules to feed people and the industrial units with sufficient water supply.

He also said that large industrial associations like the CII should take the lead in conserving water for the small sponge iron plants before embarking on large irrigation projects.

Present on the occasion, CII senior director S Raghupathy and Sohrabji Godrej from the Green Business Centre spoke on the Indian Business Alliance on Water (IBAW), a joint collaboration between the CII and the Word Economic Forum supported by the UNDP. The basic objective of the IBAW is to catalyse the PPCP in water and watershed management.

They explored the possibility of forming a joint task force with the state government in this regard. Among others, chairman of the state chapter of the CII SS Nandurdikar and vice-chairman RK Jena also spoke. Over 70 participants from leading industries of the state and senior government officials participated at the seminar.