CDS (I) 2020 General Knowledge · Question 110 of 120

Correct — D, Khadakwasla. The National Water Academy is the in-house training institute of the Central Water Commission, and it sits at Khadakwasla near Pune, on the campus of the Central Water and Power Research Station. It runs induction training for newly recruited officers of the Central Water Engineering Service, orientation and refresher courses, and capacity-building programmes on dam safety, flood forecasting, hydrology and water management for engineers from the Centre, the States and neighbouring countries. Khadakwasla itself, about sixteen kilometres south-west of Pune, is a cluster of national institutions built around the reservoir — besides the water research station it holds the National Defence Academy and the Defence Institute of Advanced Technology.

• (a)Dehradun — A training town, but for other services — the Forest Research Institute, the Indira Gandhi National Forest Academy, the Survey of India and the Indian Military Academy are there. Water training is not.
• (b)Hyderabad — Hosts several national institutions, including the National Institute of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj, the National Geophysical Research Institute and the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel National Police Academy. The water academy is not among them.
• (c)Bhopal — Home to the Indian Institute of Forest Management and to national institutes in other fields, but not to the training arm of the Central Water Commission.

The Central Water Commission is an attached office of the Department of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation under the Ministry of Jal Shakti, with its headquarters at Sewa Bhawan, R.K. Puram, New Delhi. It is the country's technical authority on water resources — flood forecasting, dam safety, hydrological observation and the appraisal of irrigation and multipurpose projects — and the National Water Academy is the arm through which it trains the engineers who do that work.

Location questions of this kind are answered most reliably by grouping institutions around a place rather than memorising them one by one. Khadakwasla is a water-and-defence cluster; Dehradun is forestry, survey and the Indian Military Academy; Hyderabad is rural development, geophysics and police training; Bhopal is forest management. Notice that UPSC has already asked where the Central Water and Power Research Station is, and the answer was the same locality — so one fact about Khadakwasla settles two questions from two different examinations.

• The National Water Academy is the training institute of the Central Water Commission and is located at Khadakwasla, near Pune.
• The Central Water Commission is an attached office of the Department of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation, Ministry of Jal Shakti.
• Its headquarters is at Sewa Bhawan, R.K. Puram, New Delhi.
• The Central Water and Power Research Station is also at Khadakwasla, about sixteen kilometres south-west of Pune.
• The National Defence Academy and the Defence Institute of Advanced Technology are in the same Khadakwasla cluster.

• Placing every national academy in Dehradun, Hyderabad or Mussoorie by habit.
• Confusing the Central Water Commission with the Central Ground Water Board, which handles groundwater assessment and regulation.
• Assuming the Commission's training institute must be in New Delhi because its headquarters is.

As a straight institution-to-location item, or as a match of national institutes to the cities that house them.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Central Water Commission functions under which one of the following Union Ministries?

  • (a)Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change
  • (b)Ministry of Earth Sciences
  • (c)Ministry of Jal Shakti
  • (d)Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers' Welfare

  Answer(c) Ministry of Jal Shakti — as an attached office of the Department of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Central Water and Power Research Station is located at

  • (a)Roorkee
  • (b)Khadakwasla
  • (c)Nagpur
  • (d)Bhubaneswar

  Answer(b) Khadakwasla — near Pune, in the same cluster that houses the National Water Academy and the National Defence Academy.