Sri Vijaya Puram, Mar. 3: A Training Workshop on State/District and Block Level on 7th Minor Irrigation Census and 2nd Census of Water Bodies was held today in the Conference Hall of Directorate of Agriculture, Haddo, Sri Vijaya Puram to create awareness about the water which is a very essential resource in A&N Islands and significantly contribute to the agriculture economy by enabling crop production through irrigation. The two censuses are to build an accurate and comprehensive database which will serve as tools not only for monitoring and evaluating various schemes but also for efficient management of water resource of the UT of A & N Islands.
Er. Arun Kumar, Superintending Engineer/ Director (SWIC), Andaman Public Works Department, Sri Vijaya Puram as the chief guest addressed the participants and expressed his delight at the opportunity to work with the Department of Agriculture collaboratively, since 1st Census of Major & Medium Irrigation Project & 1st Census of Springs have been included for the first time by the Ministry of Jal Shakti and APWD is the Nodal Department. Further, he also stated that the online database will add to better management and planning for the future developmental activities and since the Islands are scattered, each Islands could potentially become self sufficient.
Shri. Ramesh Kumar, Joint Director (Agri.) HQ, guest of honor addressed the participants and stated that the database can effectively used for holistic planning on water management by integrating water harvesting structures, micro irrigation and ground water mapping and the digitization process could be used in future.
Earlier, delivering the welcome address, Shri C Vinod Kumar, Nodal Officer (MI Census) emphasized the importance of 7th Minor Irrigation Census and 2nd Census of Water Bodies and provided an insightful introduction to the objectives of the training. The key highlight of the workshop included interactive session and engaging in field hands-on training through Mobile Application.
During the technical session, Shri. Sibi Mathew, Junior Engineer, CD-II, Prothrapur, APWD as a resource person briefed about the 1st Census of Springs and its importance in the 7th MI Census database as well as detailed about the mobile application features. In the interactive session, the Nodal Officer (MI Census) elaborated about the Web based Application of census and procedures for creating the User credentials for District Level, Block Level and Enumerator level for both rural and urban areas of South Andaman District. Further, the Agriculture Officer (Soil) briefed in detail about various schedules to be filled up through Mobile Application.
In the afternoon session, the Block Level trainee officers were demonstrated with Mobile Application in the farmer field of Chouldari, South Andaman for fetching the database of water bodies in rural areas.
In the training workshop around 30 participated including Senior Officers, resource persons from APWD & Agriculture Department. Altogether, 22 trainee Officers of Agriculture Department from various zones enhanced their job skills from the one day training workshop.
