Which one of the following Watershed Development Projects sponsored by the Central Government of India which aims at enabling the rural population to conserve the water ?
- (a)Pani Sansad
- (b)Hariyali
- (c)Jal Kranti
- (d)None of the above
Correct — B, Hariyali. Hariyali was launched in January 2003 by the Department of Land Resources in the Union Ministry of Rural Development as a watershed development programme whose stated aim was to harvest every drop of rainwater for irrigation, horticulture, floriculture, pasture development and fisheries, so as to create sustainable income for the village community and secure drinking water across rural India — which is exactly the description in the stem. Its defining institutional feature was that it revised the Department's 2001 watershed guidelines to make the Gram Panchayat the sole implementing and managing body for watershed projects, transferring both funds and administrative control to the elected panchayat rather than to a separately constituted watershed committee. Hariyali also served as the umbrella framework under which three existing area programmes were run — the Drought Prone Areas Programme, the Desert Development Programme and the Integrated Wastelands Development Programme. Of the four options it is the only one that is a centrally sponsored watershed development project, so 'None of the above' does not apply.
- (a)Pani Sansad — There is no centrally sponsored watershed development project of this name. The phrase echoes 'Pani Panchayat', the term used for local water-users' bodies in some states, but such bodies are village-level institutions for sharing and managing water, not a Government of India watershed programme, and they are not what the stem describes.
- (c)Jal Kranti — The strongest distractor, because it is a genuine central water initiative — but not a watershed development project. Jal Kranti Abhiyan was launched in 2015-16 by the Ministry of Water Resources as a water-conservation awareness campaign built around the selection of a 'Jal Gram' in every district. It came more than a decade after Hariyali, it was a campaign rather than a watershed development project, and it belonged to a different ministry.
- (d)None of the above — This would be right only if no option named a real central watershed programme. Hariyali is one — a Ministry of Rural Development scheme of January 2003 that matches the stem's description precisely — so the escape option fails.
A watershed is the area of land draining to a common outlet, and watershed development treats that whole unit together: contour bunding and trenching on the upper slopes to slow run-off, check dams and percolation tanks in the drainage lines to hold water and recharge groundwater, and afforestation and pasture regeneration to hold soil. India has run these programmes since the 1970s under several names. The Department of Land Resources in the Ministry of Rural Development handled the Drought Prone Areas Programme, the Desert Development Programme and the Integrated Wastelands Development Programme; Hariyali, from 2003, gathered all three under one set of guidelines and handed implementation to Gram Panchayats. The line continued through the Common Guidelines for Watershed Development Projects of 2008 and the Integrated Watershed Management Programme from 2009-10, which was later folded into the Watershed Development Component of the Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana.
Scheme questions are decided by three tags — the year, the ministry, and what kind of instrument it is. Apply them here and the answer separates cleanly. Hariyali: 2003, Ministry of Rural Development, a watershed development programme. Jal Kranti Abhiyan: 2015-16, Ministry of Water Resources, an awareness campaign. Only the first matches a stem that asks for a watershed development project. The deeper point Hariyali is remembered for is the governance shift, not the engineering: by making the Gram Panchayat the implementing agency it put watershed funds through the constitutional local body created by the 73rd Amendment. That change was also its main criticism, since panchayats often lacked the technical capacity that the separate watershed committees had built, and the 2008 Common Guidelines partly reversed course by restoring dedicated project implementing agencies.
- Hariyali was launched in January 2003 by the Department of Land Resources, Ministry of Rural Development, as a watershed development programme.
- Its guidelines made the Gram Panchayat the sole implementing and managing body for watershed projects, giving elected panchayats direct financial and administrative control.
- It served as the umbrella for three existing area programmes — the Drought Prone Areas Programme, the Desert Development Programme and the Integrated Wastelands Development Programme.
- Its stated aim was to harvest rainwater for irrigation, horticulture, floriculture, pasture development and fisheries and to provide drinking water in rural areas.
- It was succeeded by the Common Guidelines for Watershed Development Projects, 2008 and the Integrated Watershed Management Programme from 2009-10, later merged into the Watershed Development Component of the Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana.
- Confusing Jal Kranti Abhiyan, a 2015-16 Ministry of Water Resources awareness campaign, with a watershed development project of the Ministry of Rural Development
- Assuming a 'None of the above' option is safe when one of the named schemes is real and matches the description
- Mixing up the ministries — watershed development programmes of this line belong to the Department of Land Resources under Rural Development, not to the water ministry
UPPSC asks government schemes by name recall — which scheme does what, launched by which ministry, in which year — and includes at least one real but mismatched scheme as the distractor. UPSC prefers the substance: what a watershed programme can and cannot achieve, or whether a given scheme-to-ministry pair is correctly matched.
What are the benefits of implementing the ‘Integrated Watershed Development Programme’? 1. Prevention of soil runoff 2. Linking the country’s perennial rivers with seasonal rivers 3. Rainwater harvesting and recharge of groundwater table 4. Regeneration of natural vegetation Select the correct answer using the code given below.
- (a) 1 and 2 only
- (b) 2, 3 and 4 only
- (c) 1, 3 and 4 only
- (d) 1, 2, 3 and 4
Answer(c) 1, 3 and 4 only
The successor programme, asked for what watershed development actually does — check soil run-off, harvest rainwater and recharge groundwater, regenerate vegetation. That is the substance of the aim UPPSC quotes in its stem, and it marks the boundary: watershed work does not link rivers.
Consider the following pairs: Programme/Project — Ministry 1. Drought-Prone Area Programme : Ministry of Agriculture 2. Desert Development Programme : Ministry of Environment and Forests 3. National Watershed Development Project for Rainfed Areas : Ministry of Rural Development Which of the above pairs is/are correctly matched?
- (a) 1 and 2 only
- (b) 3 only
- (c) 1, 2 and 3
- (d) None
Answer(d) None
The ministry test applied to the very programmes Hariyali brought under one umbrella. DPAP and DDP belong to the Department of Land Resources in the Ministry of Rural Development — the same department that launched Hariyali — which is the tag that separates it from the water ministry's Jal Kranti Abhiyan.
A geographical unit that collects, stores and release water is called -
- (a) Wet land
- (b) Waste land
- (c) Water reserve
- (d) Watershed
Answer(d) Watershed
The concept underneath the scheme, asked a year later. A watershed is the drainage unit that collects, stores and releases water — which is why programmes like Hariyali treat that whole unit together rather than working plot by plot.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The Hariyali guidelines of 2003 are chiefly remembered for which of the following changes in watershed development?
- (a)Transferring implementation of watershed projects to Gram Panchayats
- (b)Shifting watershed development from the Ministry of Rural Development to the Ministry of Agriculture
- (c)Making watershed projects entirely dependent on external donor funding
- (d)Replacing area-based treatment with individual farm-level subsidies
Answer(a) Transferring implementation of watershed projects to Gram Panchayats — Hariyali made the elected panchayat the sole implementing and managing body, which is its defining institutional feature.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Which of the following is the correct chronological order of India's watershed development frameworks?
- (a)Hariyali — Integrated Watershed Management Programme — Common Guidelines for Watershed Development
- (b)Common Guidelines for Watershed Development — Hariyali — Integrated Watershed Management Programme
- (c)Hariyali — Common Guidelines for Watershed Development — Integrated Watershed Management Programme
- (d)Integrated Watershed Management Programme — Hariyali — Common Guidelines for Watershed Development
Answer(c) Hariyali (2003) — Common Guidelines for Watershed Development (2008) — Integrated Watershed Management Programme (2009-10), which was later folded into the watershed component of PMKSY.