Union Culture and Tourism Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat on Wednesday, 15 July 2026, highlighted a rainwater harvesting initiative being rolled out across 75 CM-SHRI schools in Delhi, framing it as an extension of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 'Catch the Rain' (Catch the Rain) vision for national water security.

In his post, Shekhawat wrote: 'बारिश की हर बूंद, कल की जल सुरक्षा' — 'Every drop of rain is tomorrow's water security' — announcing that Rainwater Harvesting Systems are being installed in the selected schools. Each school is projected to recharge approximately 2 lakh litres of groundwater annually. The initiative, starting with 75 schools, is slated for eventual expansion to 800 schools across the capital.

Context

PM Modi launched the Catch the Rain campaign in 2021 under the Jal Shakti Abhiyan, calling on states and urban bodies to create rainwater harvesting structures — from rooftop systems to check dams and ponds — to arrest rapid groundwater depletion. The campaign set a national tone for treating every monsoon as an opportunity to recharge aquifers rather than let runoff go to waste.

The CM-SHRI (Chief Minister Schools of Rising India) programme in Delhi was designed to upgrade select government schools with improved infrastructure. Integrating water conservation infrastructure into these schools layers an environmental mandate onto an education-focused scheme, aligning two policy priorities in a single intervention.

Policy Backdrop

India's water security architecture rests on several interlocking central schemes. The Jal Jeevan Mission (launched 2019) targets household tap-water connectivity, while the Atal Bhujal Yojana (also 2019) focuses on sustainable groundwater management in water-stressed regions. Together with Catch the Rain, these schemes form a multi-layered national response to falling urban and rural water tables.

Mandatory rainwater harvesting in public buildings and schools has been a recurring theme in both central guidelines and state-level building codes. Delhi, with its dense urban footprint and high groundwater demand, is a critical theatre for such interventions. The projected combined recharge from 75 schools alone — roughly 1.5 crore litres per year — illustrates the cumulative potential when public infrastructure is systematically retrofitted.

Stakeholders and Impact

The most immediate beneficiaries are Delhi's school students, who gain improved water infrastructure on campus, and the broader urban groundwater ecosystem that draws from the same depleted aquifers. Residents, municipal water utilities, and farmers on the city's periphery all depend on stable groundwater levels, making recharge initiatives a shared urban-rural concern.

Shekhawat's amplification of a Delhi government scheme is notable given the layered intergovernmental context of the capital. The post signals a BJP alignment of messaging between central leadership and the city's administration on water security, projecting a unified front on an issue that resonates strongly with urban voters and environmental advocates alike.

What's Next

The stated roadmap points to scaling the programme from 75 to 800 schools, a roughly 10-fold expansion that would represent one of the larger school-level rainwater harvesting drives in any Indian city. Watchers will track rollout milestones, central funding flows under the National Water Mission, and how the initiative integrates with Delhi's broader urban master plan water targets.

If the recharge volumes hold at scale, an 800-school network could collectively recharge upward of 16 crore litres of groundwater annually — a meaningful, if partial, contribution to stabilising the capital's stressed aquifers for future generations.