The Hindu Business Line : National Water Policy needs to be drafted afresh

The management of water resources has become a crucial issue in India, which faces enormous strain on natural resources on account of population explosion and improper planning and distribution.

Any water crisis arises not so much from a scarcity of water in nature as from human over-use, abuse and mismanagement of the resource, according to Mr Ramaswamy R. Iyer, former Secretary (Water Resources) and author of Towards Water Wis dom: Limits, Justice, Harmony, recently published by Sage ( www.sagepublications.com ).

Interacting with Business Line over the e-mail on challenges surrounding water management in the Indian context, he said that high economy of water use is possible and necessary in every kind of use.

“Water, being a basic life support resource, will always be a factor in politics, but it tends to get ‘politicised’ in the wrong sense,” he said.

“The existing structure of entries relating to water in the Constitution leaves enough room for the Centre to act, but it has failed to do so for political reasons.”

Mincing no words, he said that a National Water Policy is already in place, “but it is a poor document. It needs to be drafted afresh in a radically different manner. There is a need for some degree of commonality in the understanding of and approach to water across the States, and this calls for a national water law or code.”

On the need for a National Water Authority, he is of the view that whether the country needs one “will depend on what the National Water Law, if one is enacted, says.”

Mr Iyer also said that nationalising rivers, in the sense of shifting water to the Concurrent List, is not about to happen, nor is it necessary.

Touching upon the need for water management in town planning, he said: “Urban town planning without water planning is meaningless, and water planning necessarily includes water management. This is true regardless of whether there is increasing migration from rural to urban areas or not.”

Regarding water resources being usurped by cola majors and packaged water companies, he said: “If water supplied by the public system were adequate, reliable and safe, there would be no need at all for the bottled water industry.”

According to him, colas and other soft drinks are not thirst-quenchers, as water is, but pleasure providers.

“Unfortunately, both the bottled water industry and the soft drinks industry draw raw water from the water sources of the community and dispose of the wastewater after processing.

“These could have a serious impact on the water sources of the community, even assuming that the products themselves are very good in quality.”

According to him, very stringent evaluations prior to licensing and monitoring and quality checks during and after production — of product, process and waste disposal — are necessary.

“Also, the impact on the resource should be under continuous watch.”

On the question of shifting from water-intensive crops to less-intensive ones, he said that in principle this seems plausible, “but there are two difficulties. First, it is not clear how this can be brought about. Cropping patterns are the result of a number of factors and influencing them is not a simple matter.”

Secondly, he added, some food crops may be water-intensive “but they cannot be ruled out on that ground as issues of food security are involved. No easy answer is possible.”

Mr Iyer was the initiator and principal draftsman of India’s first National Water Policy in 1987.

After retirement, he was Research Professor at the Centre for Policy Research, where he worked on water-related issues, particularly on co-operation on river waters by India, Nepal and Bangladesh.

He has also served as consultant for the World Commission on Dams (WCD) and the International Water Management Institute, Colombo.

D. MURALI

C. RAMESH

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