First Census of Water Bodies

About the census-

• The census provides a comprehensive inventory of India’s water resources, including natural and man-made water bodies like ponds, tanks, lakes, and more, and to collect data on the encroachment of water bodies.
• It also highlighted disparities between rural and urban areas and varying levels of encroachment and revealed crucial insights into the country’s water resources.
• The census was launched under the centrally sponsored scheme, “Irrigation Census” in convergence with the 6th Minor Irrigation Census in order to have a comprehensive national database of all water bodies. 
• The information on all important aspects of the water bodies including their type, condition, status of encroachments, use, storage capacity, status of filling up of storage, etc was collected. 
• It covered all the water bodies located in rural as well as urban areas that are in-use or not in-use. 
• It also took into account all type of uses of water bodies like irrigation, industry, pisciculture, domestic/ drinking, recreation, religious, ground water recharge etc. 

Key highlights-

• About 2,424,540 water bodies have been enumerated in the country by the Ministry of Jal Shakti, out of which 97.1 per cent are in rural areas and only 2.9 per cent are in urban areas.
• The top five states in terms of a number of water bodies are West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and Assam — which constitute around 63 per cent of the total water bodies in the country.
• The top five States in terms of the number of water bodies in urban areas are West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Uttar Pradesh and Tripura, whereas in rural areas, top five States are West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and Assam.
• 59.5 per cent of water bodies are ponds, followed by tanks (15.7 per cent), reservoirs (12.1 per cent), Water conservation schemes/percolation tanks/check dams (9.3 per cent), lakes (0.9 per cent) and others (2.5 per cent).

• It was found that 55.2 per cent of water bodies are owned by private entities whereas 44.8 per cent of water bodies are in the domain of public ownership.
• Out of all public owned water bodies, maximum water bodies are owned by Panchayats, followed by State Irrigation/State WRD.
• Out of all private owned water bodies, maximum water bodies are in hands of Individual owner/farmer followed by group of individuals and other private bodies
• Top 05 States which lead in the private owned water bodies are West Bengal, Assam, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and Jharkhand.
• Out of all ‘in use’ water bodies, major water bodies are reported to be used in pisciculture followed by Irrigation.
• Top 05 States wherein major use of water bodies is in pisciculture are West Bengal, Assam, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh;
• Top 05 States wherein major use of water bodies is in irrigation are Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, West Bengal and Gujarat.
• 78% water bodies are man-made water bodies whereas 22% are natural water bodies. 
• 1.6% (38,496) water bodies out of all the enumerated water bodies are reported to be encroached out of which 95.4% are in rural areas and remaining 4.6% in urban areas.
• The information on water spread area was reported in respect of 23,37,638 water bodies. Out of these water bodies, 72.4% have water spread area less than 0.5 hectare, 13.4% have water spread area between 0.5-1 hectare, 11.1% have water spread area between 1-5 hectares and remaining 3.1% of water bodies have water spread area more than 5 hectares.