DoLR Reviews WDC-PMKSY 2.0 Watershed Works in Pune

Water conservation in the villages of western Maharashtra came under official scrutiny this week. Shri Dilip Kumar, Secretary of the Department of Land Resources (DoLR) in the Ministry of Rural Development, inspected watershed development works carried out under the Watershed Development Component of the Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana 2.0, known as WDC-PMKSY 2.0, in the villages of Varude, Gulani and Wafgaon in Pune district on 30 October 2026.

What the Secretary said

Speaking to villagers after the inspection, he said water is the foundation of the future and that every drop of rain has to be held back if villages are to become water-secure and self-reliant. He asked residents to take collective charge of repairing and maintaining the water harvesting structures built under the scheme so that the assets keep working for the next twenty years, and he held up Hiware Bazar, the well-known water-secure village of Maharashtra, as the standard the villages of the Khed Project should aim for.

The structures on the ground

The works follow the ridge-to-valley approach, which treats the catchment from the top of the slope downwards. Those seen on the visit include Continuous Contour Trenches, earthen nala bunds, cement nala bunds, Kolhapuri-type weirs and storage ponds. The Secretary looked at how far these have cut rainwater runoff, recharged groundwater and improved water available for farming, and also reviewed farm ponds, horticulture plantations, equipment given to beneficiaries and benefits extended to women's self-help groups.

What the villagers reported

• Watershed works across eleven villages of the Khed Project have raised groundwater levels
• Farmers are now able to take two to three crops in a year, lifting farm income and rural livelihoods
• Despite drought-like conditions this year, water held in farm ponds and in wells near cement nala bunds and trenches has kept standing crops irrigated

The review meeting

A day earlier, on 29 October 2026, the Secretary chaired a review meeting at Yashada in Pune with the Secretary of the Soil and Water Conservation Department of the Government of Maharashtra, going over the physical and financial progress of the scheme. With El Nino conditions in view, he pressed for faster work in the 76 talukas covered by the scheme out of the state's 304 drought-affected talukas. Percolation tanks, storage ponds, storage bunds and Kolhapuri-type weirs were listed as priority works, and officials were told to keep to timelines, maintain quality, strengthen Centre-State coordination and use the available funds well.

Who else took part

Shri Nitin Khade, Joint Secretary (Watershed Management) in DoLR, Dr Jitendra Papalkar, Secretary of the state's Soil and Water Conservation Department, and Smt Ashwini Jagtap, Deputy Chief Executive Officer of the Vasundhara Watershed Development Agency, joined the visit.