The Ministry of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation (MoWR, RD & GR), Government of India (GoI) has proposed the Hydrology Project Phase III, now named as National Hydrology Project (NHP) as follow-on to the earlier Hydrology Projects (HP-I and HP-II). Hydrology Projects have been the central government initiatives and efforts in India to improve the planning, development and management of water resources, as well as flood forecasting and reservoir operations in real-time. The project with completed two phases (Phase I from 1996 to 2003 and Phase II from 2006 to 2014) has established the backbone of a comprehensive Hydrological Information System (HIS) in India, providing scientifically verified, uniformly accepted and widely accessed hydrological records covering all aspects of the hydrological cycle. Apart from improving and standardizing the country's hydro-meteorological and geohydrological monitoring systems, HP-I and -II were instrumental in promoting a paradigm shift from relatively isolated water resources development towards comprehensive planning, development and management of water resources in a river basin context. HP-I covered nine states and six central agencies, while HPII was implemented in 13 states and eight central agencies, predominantly in Central and Southern India.
After successfully participating in first two phases of Hydrology Project, the National Institute of Hydrology (NIH) is participating in NHP as one of the central agencies. NIH is a premier research institute in India, established in 1978 with the main objective of undertaking, aiding, promoting and coordinating systematic and scientific work in all aspects of hydrology. In addition to its Headquarters at Roorkee (Uttarakhand), the Institute has four regional centres at Belgaum, Jammu, Kakinada and Bhopal and two centres for Flood Management Studies at Guwahati and Patna. NIH has more than 70 highly qualified scientists having expertise on various areas related to hydrology and water resources supported by scientific and technical staff. The Institute at its headquarters has well equipped laboratories and computational facilities comprising of Computer Centre, Soil-Water analysis, Water Quality analysis, Isotope, Remote Sensing and GIS, Hydrological Investigations, Centre of Excellence for Advanced Groundwater Research, Snow & Glacier. The Regional Centres also have laboratory facilities.