Bengaluru: In a measure aimed at making effective use and management of available water resources for a variety of purposes, the State Cabinet recently approved the Karnataka Water Policy-2022.

Highlighting the salient features of the Water Policy-2022 after the Cabinet meeting, Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister J.C. Madhuswamy said that according to the Policy, water management is not a techno-managerial process and it has multiple uses and many stakeholders.

Pointing out that the State adopted a water policy in 2002, he said that, but due to changed scenarios of water availability and demand, it felt the need for a new policy for better management of all water resources.

Maintaining that the new policy will shift the focus from increasing water supply infrastructure to managing water within the available budget, Madhuswamy said that the policy was revised to address the new challenges and make it a more comprehensively integrated resource-management oriented to address the growing inter-sectoral demands.

The policy envisages constitution of an inter-Departmental State Water Resources Authority under the Chairmanship of the Minister for Water Resources and forming of a high-level water policy review and monitoring committee under the Chairmanship of the Chief Secretary.

Teacher  recruitment

Continuing, the Minister said that the Cabinet also decided to relax the upper age limit by two years for all categories in the recruitment of teachers for Government Primary and High Schools. The decision to relax the age limit was taken as the Government was not able to recruit teachers owing to COVID and lockdowns for the past two years, because of which many candidates crossed the age limit. The Department of School Education and Literacy would shortly fill about 15,000 vacancies in the State, he added.

The other Cabinet approvals included release of Rs. 199.40 crore for purchase of 650 buses for Kalyana Karnataka Road Transport Corporation (KKRTC), Rs. 336 crore for purchase of 840 (BS6) buses for BMTC and Rs. 90 crore for construction of ‘Abhivruddhi Bhavana’ in the premises of Karnataka Slum Development Board at Bengaluru.