Back in 2020, Asok Kumar G started a simple campaign to “Catch The Rain”, with the tagline, "Catch The Rain, where it falls, when it falls",  which has now become a national movement with the blessings of Prime Minister Narendra  Modi. He, in his “#MannKiBaat  on 28 Feb 2021,  directed the Ministry of Jal Shakti,  Department of Water Resources, RD & GR to take it up as a National program with “the whole of Government approach and people’s Participation”. PM Modi himself launched it as “Jal Shakti Abhiyan: Catch The Rain" campaign” on 22 March 2021, World Water day.

The original campaign “Catch The Rain” initiated by Asok Kumar in 2020 was "to nudge the states and stake-holders to create appropriate Rain Water Harvesting Structures (RWHS) suitable to the climatic conditions and sub-soil strata, with people's active participation, during the pre-monsoon and monsoon period". 

Under this campaign, drives to make check dams, water harvesting pits, rooftop RWHS etc; removal of encroachments and de-silting of tanks to increase their storage capacity; removal of obstructions in the channels which bring water to them from the catchment areas etc; repairs to step-wells and using defunct bore-wells and unused wells to put water back to aquifers etc were to be taken up with active participation of the people. DO letters requesting to take steps were written by Asok Kumar who then was  the Additional Secretary &  Mission Director, National Water Mission  (NWM) to Chief Secretaries of all states (on 27 February 2020), to all District Collectors and District Magistrates (on 12 May 2020) and to heads of  institutions like IIMs, IITs, Central Universities, Railways etc having large tracts of lands. To facilitate these activities, “Rain Centers” were to be opened in each district, at least for 4 months from May 1, 2020 in Collectorates/Municipality/GP  offices.  These "Rain Centres" were to have a dedicated mobile phone number and manned by an engineer or a person well trained in RWHS. These centres were to act as a technical guidance cells to all in district as to how to catch the rain, as it falls, where it falls. 

The success of the campaign, initially confined to institutions with large land areas due to the restrictions of 2020 Covid period, caught the attention of Prime Minister Modi,who  mentioned it in his "Mann Ki Bath" of 28-2-2021. In his talk, Prime Minister Modi announced that Ministry of Jal Shakti  would launch the campaign "Jal Shakti Abhiyan : Catch The Rain" with the tag line "catch the rain, where it falls, when it falls" on 22 March, 2021. In 22 days the countrywide launch was to be effected. Cabinet Secretary held meetings with Secretaries of releated Ministries, and then with Chief Secretaries of all states. Secretaries of Ministries of Jal Shakti; Housing and Urban Development; Rural Development and Panchayati raj signed a common letter to all Chief Secretaries detailing the steps to be taken. National Water Mission under Asok Kumar as its Mission Director was to be the implementing and coordinating agency. All these could be done in such a short time, seamlessly, because, the Catch the Rian campaign running since 2020 had cured the pitch and all were aware of the campaign concepts. 

The CatchTheRain campaign was then launched as  “Jal Shakti Abhiyan: Catch The Rain” (JSA:CTR) covering all districts - urban and rural- all municipalities the country, by Hon’ble Prime Minister Modi on 22 March 2021, the World Water Day, in a function in New Delhi, in which he addressed officers of Departments concerned in the Central and State Governments, District Magistrates/ District Collectors/ Deputy Commissioners of Districts and Sarpanchs of Gram Panchayats of all States (except those where model code of conduct was in place) via  Video Conferencing. 

This would be arguably the largest launch of a Water conservation campaign in the world, with almost 1 crore people participating online watching the live TV broadcast and NIC links to GramPanchayats. (even if out of the 2.5 lakh Gram Panchayat sarpanchs, who were asked to hold their  gramsahas in a hall with a TV at the launch time, 1 lakh Sarpanchs held gramsabhas with 100 people participating, it is a crore (10 million) people in attendance!  The Sarpanchs  were enthusiastic to participate as each of them were actually  given letters addressed to them by the Prime Minister himself.  Their enthusiastic participation reflected in and shaped the outcome of the campaign!

JSA:CTR campaign had 5 focused interventions-
(1) rainwater harvesting & water conservation 
(2) enumerating, geo-tagging & making inventory of all water bodies; preparation of scientific plans for water conservation 
(3) setting up Jal Shakti Kendras (JSKs) in all districts (JSKs were the expanded versions of Rain Centres and were to the one point resource centre of all water related information/ resources in a district)
(4) intensive afforestation and 
(5) awareness generation/ peoples participation 

Efforts were made so that all buildings in the districts should have rooftop RWHS and that maximum quantity of rain water falling in any compound should be impounded within the compound itself. The basic aim should be that No or only limited will water to flow out of the compound or  #NotADropFromMyCompound.
Catching the Rain will help in improving soil moisture, raise ground water table, there by recharging the depleting aquifer and also helps in reduce the cost and utilisation of  energy for pumping it out from under-ground using bore wells. In urban areas it will reduce water gushing out to roads and damaging them and will also prevent urban flooding.
Under the “Catch The Rain” initiative, all water bodies in the districts were to be enumerated, (checked with revenue records) and encroachments to be removed.

The results of the campaign were phenomenal and well documented. Through an App created by NIC for feeding the data of water bodies and works done and their pictures/videos  were uploaded from each of the districts every day or atleast every week during the campaign period, .  Video-Conferences were held with ALL DISTRICT COLLECTORS, state wise  at-least once during the campaign period, 
Under the campaign, since the launch on 22 March 2021, till 31 December 2021, both urban and rural areas put together:  
a total of 46,70,271 water related works were completed/were on-going, 
in addition to 36,75,68,460 afforestation activities carried out.  
The expenditure under MNREGS alone was Rs 65,666 Crores., as Hon'ble PM had directed for the use of the maximum flow of MNREGS funds for water conservation activities 
306 Jal Shakti Kendras were set up in various States/UTs. ( this is now over 600).

As reported by the Ministry of Rural Development, more than 2.03 lakh GPs out of the 2.69 lakh GPs prepared water conservation plans. 
15.32 lakh water bodies were enumerated with its details like its latitude and longitude, ownership, state of health, photos etc. 
Over 16.67 lakh photos on the activities undertaken/works done under the campaign have been uploaded on the portal jsactr.mowr.gov.in created for collation of information about the campaign from the field level. 

The phenomenal success of this campaign in 2021 prompted the government to continue it every year since then - launched in successive years by Hon President Kovind, Hon Vice President Dhankar and Hon President  Murmur. Reletless efforts were continued by National Water Mission and the Secretaries of Water Depts of State Governments, NGOs etc. 
The latest reports suggest that water table has gone up in many states, despite increased exploitation of Ground water and there is an increased/ enhanced awareness for rain water harvesting and conservation. 
Most of the data on waterbodies have been collected and verified on ground. Over 600 Jal Shakti Kendras are in place. 
Asok Kumar had also created “Pikku” the mascot peacock of Catch The Rain campaign also helped in spreading the message.
This successful CatchTheRain campaign, incidentally, got Asok Kumar a popular moniker -  “the Rain-man of India”