Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday extended birthday greetings to Union Minister of Jal Shakti Chandrakant Raghunath Patil, commending his efforts to ensure safe and sufficient drinking water access for households.
In a post on X, PM Modi prayed for Minister Patil’s long life. “Birthday wishes to Union Minister Shri CR Patil Ji. He is making commendable efforts to ensure our water resources are harnessed effectively to boost ‘Ease of Living’ and our vision of Har Ghar Jal is realised. May he lead a long and healthy life,” the PM wrote on X.
Birthday wishes to Union Minister Shri CR Patil Ji. He is making commendable efforts to ensure our water resources are harnessed effectively to boost ‘Ease of Living’ and our vision of Har Ghar Jal is realised. May he lead a long and healthy life.@CRPaatil
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) March 16, 2025
Minister Patil is a member of Parliament from the Navsari Lok Sabha seat in Gujarat. He is regarded as a seasoned politician with good organisational skills in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Patil was born on this day in 1955 in Pimpri Akaraut village in Maharashtra’s Jalgaon. He joined the Gujarat Police as a constable in 1975 and resigned 14 years later in 1984.
After his stint in the police, Patil ventured into the media industry and started a Gujarati daily newspaper in 1991. His political journey began when he joined the BJP in 1989. Initially, he served as the Surat city treasurer of the party and then as the vice president for the city unit. Minister Patil is popularly known as CR Patil. His organisational skills paved the way for his appointment as the chairman of the Gujarat Industrial Development Corporation (GIDC), a state government-run public sector entity, in 1998 by the then-Chief Minister of Gujarat, Keshubhai Patel.
Patil was chosen to head the Ministry of Jal Shakti when the new NDA government cabinet was formed last year. In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, Patil achieved a remarkable victory with 1,031,065 votes, defeating his closest rival by 773,551 votes. Emphasizing water security as a crucial pillar in realizing the vision of ‘Viksit Bharat,’ Minister Patil earlier stated that the Narendra Modi government is working towards ensuring water security by 2047.
In an event on March 12, the Minister of Jal Shakti said, “Under the visionary leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, transformative initiatives like the Jal Jeevan Mission and Jal Shakti Abhiyan are revolutionizing water management and ensuring sustainable conservation of our water resources.”
He further emphasized that these efforts extend to enhancing industrial water use efficiency by advocating for innovative technologies that optimize recycling and reduce wastage across the industrial sector. C. R. Patil said that industries must lead water conservation efforts by adopting the 4R aapproach—amantra given by the Prime Minister—reduce, reuse, recycle, and recharge. He also reiterated Respect as the 5th mantra.
