KOCHI: Ernakulam district has grabbed the second position among south Indian states in central government's National Water Award 2018 for rehabilitation and revival of water sources.Madurai got the first place in the category which included districts from Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu Kerala , Karnataka, Goa, Pondicherry and Lakshadweep.Union water resources minister Nitin Gadkari will confer the award on district collector K Mohammed Y Safirulla at Constitutional Club, Delhi, on Monday.The water-protection measures undertaken by the district for reviving ponds, lakes and other waterbodies over the last two years were considered for the award. Rainwater harvesting projects by the district were also considered for the award.Around 113 public ponds were cleaned and 156 public ponds were revived under a 100-pond revival project that was implemented with public participation in the district in 2018.Monitored directly by the district collector, the project was implemented under the Haritha Keralam mission through local self-government bodies, Anbodu Kochi, NSS technical cell, water resources department, Suchitwa Mission, Nehru Yuva Kendra and Kudumbashree. The project received CSR funds from Cochin Shipyard."Around 50% of the ponds in the district are maintained by local bodies, and cleaning is done in the summer so that it could be readied by the rains," said Sujith Karun, district officer, Haritha Keralam.In 2018 under the NREGA project 'Jala Samrudhi', 150 new ponds were dug up in the district during April, May and June. In the same year, storage of 4,812 lakh litres was achieved through the project.The Ente Kulam project is the one of the main drought-mitigation programme implemented by the district administration and also one of the most successful initiatives of large-scale water conservation methods undertaken in Ernakulam. The initiative began in 2016 with the district administration tying up with NGO Anbodu Kochi to revive the ponds that were drying up for want of proper attention.

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