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The Centre expects to pass the Inter-State River Water Disputes (Amendment) Bill, 2017 during the second phase of the current Budget session of Parliament. Its passage will simplify inter-State river water disputes resolution mechanism and cut short litigation time.
Union Minister of State for Water Resources Arjun Ram Meghwal said, “We expect to pass the Bill during the second sitting of the Budget Session which begins on March 5 and ends on April 6. This will pave the way for creation of a Central tribunal to address inter-State water disputes.”
The Bill, introduced in the Lok Sabha in March 2017, is aimed at providing quick solutions for water disputes between States. Often, the current process of setting up Tribunals and the resolution process is cumbersome. This then goes to High Courts and then to Supreme Court, defeating the purpose of quick solutions.
“Once passed, the Bill will pave the way for a Central tribunal and all the cases handled by various tribunals will come under its purview,” he said.
Regional meet
Speaking on the sidelines of the First Regional Conference of South Zone on Water Resources, where six States participated, the Minister said similar meetings have been proposed to be held in the Western, Northern and Eastern regions to take inputs from various States and to pave way for litigation free management of water resources.
The Bill proposes a Single Standing Tribunal with multiple benches instead of multiple tribunals now. It aims to provide for a mechanism to resolve the disputes amicably by negotiations, through a dispute resolution committee to be established by the Centre. A transparent data collection system at the national level for each river basin is proposed to be created. Meghwal said, “The focus will be on making river basin as a base for sorting out issues between States which share water. So we will focus on the Krishna, Godavari, Cauvery basins and so on.”
T Harish Rao, Telangana Minister for Irrigation, said, “During the meeting, we raised the issue of first assessing the overall water availability before finalising the formula for sharing. We believe we need about 1,500 TMC ft of the Godavari water. We also raised the issue of the Pattiseema project taken up by Andhra Pradesh, which diverts about 100 TMC ft of water from Gthe odavari to the Krishna. Of this, we wanted 45 TMC ft,” he said.
While welcoming the government move to host the regional meet on water resources, Thomas Mathew, Kerala Minister, said, “Water is a natural resource and its usage has to be judiciously managed. There are predictions that in future we may face water shortage.” Malladi Krishna Rao representing Pondicherry highlighted some of the concerns and the need to expedite a long pending water project with Central funding. The Union Minister assured funding from Nabard and other Central Schemes.
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