Mumbai: The BJP-Shiv Sena government in Maharashtra has undertaken an integrated water conservation and management initiative (Jalyukt Shivar) which aims to make 5,000 villages scarcity-free in the first phase in 2015-16.

The ambitious programme, aimed at making the state scarcity-free in five years, will involve construction of a series of check dams, rejuvenation of old check dams and repair of Kolhapur Type (KT) weirs and storage tanks, Water Conservation department secretary Prabhakar Deshmukh told PTI.