Gadkari has urged the Maharashtra government through a letter to Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray to adopt the ‘Buldhana Pattern’ for water conservation in other parts of the State.
Gadkari said synchronisation of national highway construction and water conservation was achieved for the first time in Buldhana district, by using soil from the water bodies, streams and rivers. This consequently lead to the increase in capacity of water storage across the water-bodies and also helped in road building.
“With this activity in Maharashtra, 225 lakh cubic metre of soil was used in national highway construction and the resultant widening / deepening resulted in increase of 22,500 Thousand Cubic Metre (TMC) of water storage capacity with no cost to state government”, Gadkari added.
He further informed about ‘Tamswada Pattern’ of water conservation project taken up in Nagpur and Wardha district in which rain water harvesting, conservation and groundwater recharge works were done in order to increase the water storage capacity of natural water bodies situated in these two districts of Eastern Vidarbha.
Taking a note of recurring crisis of floods being faced by Mumbai, which results into heavy loss of property and life, Gadkari had earlier requested Maharashtra government to take initiative for preparations of the Detailed Project Report (DPR) for formation of the State Water Grid,