Nagaland Chief Minister inaugurates State Data Centre for water resources

Our Correspondent
Kohima, Feb. 17 (EMN): With a vision to improve the quality and accessibility of water resources information as well as strengthen the capacity of water sources management institutions in Nagaland, the department of Water Resources has constructed State Data Centre in Kohima.

Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio inaugurated the facility, which was constructed under the National Hydrology Project, at the Chief Engineer’s Office, Water Resources department in Kohima, on Wednesday.

Speaking at the event, Rio stated that many government departments, including Public Health Engineering, Soil and Water Conservation, Agriculture, Horticulture, Fisheries, Land Resources, Veterinary and Animal Husbandry, and Power, function closely with water and its use. In fact, all development and utility departments need accurate date and information about water and weather conditions, he added.

He expressed hope that the centre will provide useful data accessible to all government departments, institutions, NGOS, research scholars and interested public, and help them make better development plans.

The data centre will not be able to provide quality data on its own, therefore, various departments will have to work in close co-ordination with the centre and feed it with useful and accurate information, Rio said. Only then, quality real-time data can be made available for everyone from the common platform to be provided by the centre’s website. This in turn, will help them immensely in making better plans and projections for their departments, he added.

‘With vital data and information about water resources available in the data centre, the state should be able to improve management of water resources. It should also be able to more effectively plan to meet the various challenges that are being thrown at, because of global warming, indiscriminate use and stress on forest resources,’ the CM said. 

He added that the central government’s Jaal Jeevan Shakti Mission, which is also being implemented in Nagaland, should be able to use the quality data of water resources and its behaviour from the newly inaugurated centre in future.

Talking about Nagaland scenario, he said the state sometimes receives excessive rain and little or no water at other times. Therefore, he called upon the department to learn how to manage the water and its resources.

As named Water Resource, the department should take a special responsibility and work on making good management of water, he said, while suggesting storage of rainfall or create water body for use in dry season.

Rio also pointed out that there is a looming ‘water crisis’ in many parts of the world, including India, due to misuse and mismanagement of water resources. In Nagaland too, there is a possibility of inter-village water disputes arising in the near future if the water discharge by the rivers and streams continue to shrink, he warned.

‘Many traditional water sources are drying up and villagers are in desperate need of quality water. In the foothill areas, such as Dimapur, underground water table is going down very fast; and many wells are drying up, forcing people to dig deeper and deeper wells,’ he said.

He said that the government is making all efforts to provide clean drinking water to every household.

Advisor to Water Resource, Namri Chang urged all line departments to co-ordinate and work simultaneously for the common cause- to integrate all water related data on the common platform and make it available to all stakeholders, private individuals, research scholars, students, institutions, NGOS and others.

‘With the availability of accurate data, concrete results can be obtained, which, ultimately will lead to better planning and management of the available resources. The opening of the new data centre had drawn a step closer in optimising the scarce resources and adjacent in eradicating the problems of the farmers and the society as a whole,’ he said.

Executive engineer and project manager for the State Data Centre, Wapangnaro Imchen, said that the centre was constructed under the National Hydrology Project, a World Bank-aided Project. She said that the aim of the centre was to collect, validating, store, and disseminate hydrological and meteorological data of surface and ground water for the state of Nagaland to rationalise investment in water resources sector.

She informed that real-time data would be collected through telemetric-based instruments like automatic weather stations, automatic rain gauge stations and automatic water level recorders, which will be installed at 47 stations in rivers throughout the state. The data will then be transmitted to the state data centre via satellites into the servers, which will be analysed, validated, and retrieved for use in various purposes, she added.

The centre was e-tendered in December 2018; construction work commenced in August 2019, and completed in November 2020. The total expenditure for the construction of the state data centre is INR 119.76 lakh, the engineer informed.

The data centre is housed in a two-storey building with an area of 523.2 sqm. It has rooms inclusive of workstation, GIS cell, technical section, computer lab, and video conference hall. 

Additional chief engineer of Water Resource, Razouvolie Kelio pointed out that it is necessary to make date easily accessible to all stakeholders including public so that it can be used for planning and decision-making. He added that information available at the centre can be used during flood and drought, and for optimising operation that will minimise damage and improve water management.

He expressed hope that water professionals will gain from the data centre and farmers will benefit through improved irrigation. It will facilitate PHED, Power, Agri and allied departments, Research and Educational institutions with date to know water bodies better and provide the tools for informed decision-making.