Walmi Meet – 2022

The National Water Academy (NWA) Pune, the expert national agency for capacity building in the water sector, realised the huge gap between the technological developments vis-a-vis its application in watersector on one hand and need for behavioural change in water conservation and utilization practices by the people at large at other hand. It was also realised that the various state-level Institutes/Agencies engaged in impartingwater education to the stakeholders and grass-root workers at various levels are doing a good job. However, a greater collaboration and coherence in the activities of these institutes will encourage synergetic outcomes.

With the aim to provide need based trainings to all the officers / staff of concerned State departments including farmers, the Water & Land Management Institutes (WALMIs) / Irrigation Management TrainingInstitutes (IMTIs) were set up during the 1980s. The first WALMI was established at Aurangabad during 1980 and today we have a total of 14 WALMIs and IMTIs across India, as listed below.

S N Meet
1 NERIWALM, Tezpur
2 WALMI, Maharashtra
3 WALMI, Odisha
4 WALMI, Patna
5 IMTI, Trichy
6 WALMI, Karnataka
7 WALMI, Gujarat
8 CWRDM, Kerala
9 IMTI, Kota
10 WALMI, Bhopal
11 HIRMI, Haryana
12 WALMI, UP
13 WALAMTARI, Telangana
14 PIMTI, Punjab

The prime aim of these institutes is to promote the advancement and acquisition of scientific knowledge and to provide scope for capacity building of the various stakeholders in the sector. However, most of the WALMIs could not keep pace with the identified objectives due to various constraints, including financial support. This eventually motivated efforts towards rejuvenating these critical institutes.

In this context, the Working Group of ICID on Capacity Building, Development & Training (WG-CDTE) in Nov, 2021 at Morocco noted the following – “There are several WALMIs in India & proposed to bring all these Institutes under one umbrella to guide capacity development activities.”

Further, the role of WALMIs was discussed, in detail, during the second meeting of INCID, chaired by the Chairman, CWC, held online during July and October 2021. It was decided that a separate interaction with the WALMIs and other such institutes may be taken up so that the necessary proposal for supporting this restructuring of these institutes may be formulated. As a follow up, on the directions of Sh. Kushvinder Vohra, Member (WP&P), CWC, NWA Pune and INCID Secretariat jointly developed a Webinar Series, named WALMI- Meet 2022, in collaboration with WALMIs/IMTIs to present their activities in respect of the issues, solutions, constraints etc. experience by them.A detailed concept note on ““Synergizing Water Education in India” was prepared and shared by NWA Pune with all the WALMIs. The same may be accessed here (WALMI MEET concept note attached).

The WALMI- Meet 2022webinarseries was held from Feb, 2022 to July, 2022, in the One Week – One institute mode, wherein webinar presentations were made by all the 14 WALMIs/IMTIs etc.The following are the expected outcomes of the WALMI Meet-2022:

  • Greater understanding among all WALMIs/IMTIs in respect of SWOT of each Institute
  • Synergizing efforts in Training & Capacity Building of stakeholders in water sector
  • Resolution of issues by way of mutual interactions
  • Resolution of issues by way of mutual interactions
  • Sharing & motivating by success stories of each other.
  • Identification of new & priority areas for effective capacity building in WRD&M, identification of gaps as well as overlaps in existing mechanisms. etc.

Based on the issues and constraints highlighted by the various institutes, NWA Pune is currently preparing a report withrecommendations for INCID and the MoJS and concerned Ministries of the Statesfor further needful in the matter.