Environment

Water Community

Solution Exchange for the Water Community

CCoonnssoolliiddaatteedd RReeppllyy

FOR COMMENTS: Draft Water Framework Bill; Draft Policy Guidelines for Water Sharing & Draft River Basin Management Bill

Compiled By Sunetra Lala, Moderator, Water Community

Issue Date: 31 July 2013

From Gyaneshwar Singh, Lucknow Posted 27 June 2013

The Ministry of Water Resources, Government of India (http://wrmin.nic.in/) has recently

released the following:

The Draft National Water Framework Bill 2013 available at http://mowr.gov.in/writereaddata/linkimages/nwfl1268291020.pdf (PDF; Size: 204KB; page 29-

46),

The Draft National Policy Guidelines for Water Sharing/Distribution Amongst States 2013

available at http://mowr.gov.in/writereaddata/Policy/CWC_GUIDELINES_FOR_WATER_SHARING.pdf (PDF;

Size: 91.57KB), and

The Draft River Basin Management Bill 2012 available at

http://mowr.gov.in/writereaddata/Reports/Doabia-Committee-Report-2012.pdf (PDF; Size: 13.99MB; page 9-28)

The Ministry is seeking comments on the same by 31 July 2013. This is to request members to

send their comments on the above documents.

Responses were received, with thanks, from

1. Nitya Jacob, Centre for Science and Environment, New Delhi (Response 1)

(Response 2) 2. K.J. Joy, Society for Promoting Participative Ecosystem Management

(SOPPECOM), Pune 3. Ramaswamy R. Iyer, New Delhi

4. Jyoti Sharma, FORCE, New Delhi (Response 1) (Response 2)

5. Ashok Sharma, Development Advisor, New Delhi

6. S. V. Govardhan Das, Centre for Hydrological Education (CHE), Hyderabad

(Response 1) (Response 2) 7. Rahul Banerjee, Indore (Response 1) (Response 2)

8. Shripad Dharmadhikary, Manthan Adhyanan Kendra, Badwani, Madhya Pradesh 9. K.S. Viswanatham, International Consultant-Water Resources UNDP and FAO,

Hyderabad

10. Ranjan Panda, Water Initiatives Odisha, Bhubaneshwar 11. Eshwer Kale, WOTR, Pune

12. Bimal Prasad Pandia, Regional Centre for Development Cooperation (RCDC), Bhubaneshwar (Response 1) (Response 2)

13. Dinesh Kumar, IRAP, Hyderabad 14. D. Johnson Rhenius Jeyaseelan, Bhopal

15. Raman Kant, NEER Foundation, Meerut

16. S.V. Vijaya Kumar, National Institute of Hydrology, Kakinada 17. Deepa S Prabhu, Consultant-Knowledge Solutions, New Delhi

18. Abhik Gupta, Department of Ecology & Environmental Science, Assam (Central) University, Silchar

19. Nilakantha Rath, Indian School of Political Economy, Pune

20. R. Jagadiswara Rao, Sri Venkateswara University, Tirupati 21. Dinesh Mishra, Barh Mukti Abhiyan, Patna

22. Sureshkumar.S, CSIR-NIIST, Trivandrum 23. Philippe Cullet, Centre for Policy Research (CPR), New Delhi

24. Achyut Das, Agragamee, Kashipur, Rayagada 25. Avdhesh Pratap, Ch. Charan Singh University, Meerut

26. Ashwani Wanganeo, Barkatullah University, Bhopal

27. Ajit Seshadri, The Vigyan Vijay Foundation, New Delhi 28. Saurabh Singh, Innervoice Foundation, Ballia, UP

29. Forum for Policy Dialogue on Water Conflicts in India, Pune 30. Pravin Muchhadiya, Sahjeevan, Gujarat*

31. Nripendra Kumar Sharma, PHED, Guwahati*

*Offline Contribution

Further contributions are welcome!

Summary of Responses Responses in Full

Summary of Responses

Amidst the tussle between the Centre and States to bring in an overarching framework of water laws, the Ministry of Water Resources (MoWR) has sought public comments on its draft National

Water Framework Bill, 2013, as well the draft River Basin Management Bill. Both seek to set up a river basin authority each for the management of 12 major river basins in the country. The

Solution Exchange Water Community sought comments from its members on the two Drafts and the Draft National Policy Guidelines for Water Sharing. The main points arising out of the

discussion are summarised below.

Draft National Water Framework Law Bill (NWFB) The idea of a national water law is not something unprecedented. Many countries have national water laws or codes, and some of them (for instance, the South African National Water Act of

1998) are widely well-regarded. The considerations behind those national codes or laws are

relevant to India as well, although the form of a water law for India will clearly have to be guided by the nature of the Indian Constitution and the specific needs and circumstances of this country.

Why is a national law on water necessary? There are several reasons. Under the Indian Constitution water is primarily a State subject, but it is an increasingly important national concern

in the context of:

• the judicial recognition of the right to water as a part of the fundamental right to life; • the general perception of an imminent water crisis, and the urgent need to conserve this

scarce resource; • the severe and intractable inter-use and inter-state conflicts;

• the pollution of rivers and other water sources; • the long-term environmental, ecological and social implications of projects to augment

the availability of water for human use;

• the equity implications of the distribution, use and control of water; • the international dimensions of some of India’s rivers; and

• the emerging concerns about the impact of climate change on water and the need for appropriate responses.

It is clear that the above considerations cast several responsibilities on the Central government, apart from those of the State governments. Given these and other concerns, the need for an

overarching national water law is self-evident. Members, however, noted that in its present form the NWFB needs to consider the points below and also an earlier draft prepared by water experts

for the Planning Commission.

Centralisation of power

One of the key issues arising in the context of the NWFB is that it really is much more than a ‘framework’ that could seamlessly be integrated in the constitutional scheme giving states pre-

eminent control over water resources. In effect, the NWFB would end up having a strong centralising impact if it was adopted in its present form.

With regards to the power of the state over water and decentralisation, several points can be noted in the Draft. A positive point is that it refers to the doctrine of public trust that is in

principle a step ahead of the assertion of eminent domain by the state. Yet, it is well-known that the simple labeling of water as being under ‘public trust’ is insufficient to ensure that the ‘trustee’

behaves in a manner substantially different from the ‘sovereign’ power exercising eminent

domain. This seems to indicate that the recognition of water as a common pool community resource may end up being little more than a perfunctory statement.

Right to Water

The need to have a Right to Water is recognised by the Draft, but its elaboration is very limited. The Right is recognised only for potable water, not even for water for other domestic uses.

Although it does mention the purpose of this potable water to include health and hygiene, its

minimum quantity mentioned (25 litres per person per day) falls short of meeting any needs except that of drinking and cooking. The issue of quality is also not mentioned as an integral part

of the Right to Water. In addition, the Draft does not consider water for livelihoods as a part of the basic Right to Water.

Public Participation The Draft is weak on the recommendations for participation of the people in the planning and

management of water resources. For example, the section on Integrated River Basin Development and Management that includes the need to make River Basin Master Plans, does

not mention participation by the people. This is also true for the sections on flood control and

that of reservoir operations. Participation especially at the local levels, should be a core element

of the Draft, and should be made an integral part of the institutional structure of the Draft.

Interstate Water Sharing One of the major gaps in the Draft is the lack of clear understanding and norms around the issue

of how to share river waters across different riparian states. The Draft does not throw much light

on this except a generalised statement such as the following, “The appropriate Government shall lay down principles for allocation of water resources for amicable resolution of differences and

disputes”.

Another major area of omission in the Draft is with regards to large projects. In fact, one of the conflicting issues in India, apart from inter-state disputes, is how India plans and executes large

projects. The Draft does not say much on this issue. The Draft should outline how the already

existing large projects in India should be dealt with. First, these projects should be subjected to a periodic assessment with respect to their performance, capacity, ecological impacts,

sedimentation, risk analysis, etc., with the participation of river basin communities. Fresh Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) and Social Impact Assessments (SIAs) every 25 years

need to be recommended. For the existing dam cascades, environmental flow allocations below

and between dams should be assessed and implemented taking into consideration the present and future needs of the basin. Reviewing and reorganising Reservoir Operations Management

(ROM) wherever found as an optimal option to improve downstream flows should be made mandatory.

Draft National Policy Guidelines for Water Sharing The draft Policy Guidelines are primarily for sharing / distribution of waters of inter-state rivers

amongst the States and Union Territories of India and are recommendatory. It has no relevance or applicability with regards to international sharing/ distribution of waters of international basins

in which India is a co-basin State, even though the international basin may also be an inter-State basin, in India.

Members noted that the Draft needs to look at equity in the local context. Equity in water sharing across states is not feasible as envisaged in the Draft. It would be desirable to discuss provisions

for every person with access to lifeline water, followed by water for livelihoods and then satisfy the water needs of industry or cities. Similarly, while water efficiency in agriculture is a critical

need, diverting water for more profitable use will be politically contentious. The attempted revival

of inter-linking of rivers is another cause of concern in the Draft.

The Draft has dropped allocation priorities completely; it leaves allocation up to the states that will differ from state to state. Members cautioned, what is likely to happen is the diversion of

water from agriculture to industry and cities. This will affect the livelihoods of small and marginal farmers who depend on informal water markets; these will be the early casualties of this

diversion.

Draft River Basin Management Bill (RBMB) The draft River Basin Management Bill, which seeks to amend the defunct Rivers Board Act of 1956, provides for integrated planning, and development and management of water resources.

The Draft proposes a two-tier structure for a River Basin Authority comprising a political

Governing Council and an official-level Executive Board. The Council will not only make River Master Plans but will also enable basin states to come to an agreement for implementation of the

Plans. The Authority will make its own regulations. If a dispute cannot be settled then it will be referred to a tribunal under the Inter State Water Disputes Act, 1956 for adjudication.

Members opined the proposed River Basin Management Bill seeks to create a super authority to

control river basins with punitive powers that can overrule State Governments, not to speak of Panchayats and Urban Local Bodies. This whole exercise of centralising the power of control over

such a crucial resource as water at a time when it is necessary that it should be managed in a participatory and decentralised manner is a dangerous step. The RBMB uses the notion of ‘public

interest’ to justify the taking over of inter-state rivers by the Central Government. The RBMB is

thus clearly conceived within a context where the state plays a strong, domineering role which is not that envisaged under the doctrine of public trust.

That this is a concern is confirmed by the RBMB that asserts that the ‘regulation and

development’ of all inter-state rivers mentioned in Schedule 1 should be taken under the control of the Central Government. This is significant not only as an assertion of centralisation but also

because it confirms that this is really not an ‘amendment’ to the River Boards Act, 1956 (RBA)

but a whole new legislation. Indeed, the very premise under the RBA was that a board would be established ‘on a request received in this behalf from a State Government’.

Way forward

Members concluded that the Ministry of Water Resources and the Planning Commission need to

initiate a series of consultations on the three Drafts with experts, academics, private sector and international agencies. While the Drafts will be useful inputs to these consultations, a more

appropriate process would be to arrive at better, more specific and clear-cut articulation of the principles and provisions in the Drafts so that they are justiciable. Also, since the Laws would

have very serious implications there should be more discussions and debates on them and the MoWR should not be in a hurry to finalise them.

Responses in Full

Nitya Jacob, Centre for Science and Environment, New Delhi (response 1)

Please find below comments on the Water Framework Bill.

There is no doubt about the need for such a law, as prominent water experts noted in an

explanatory note to an earlier attempt at drafting it. This version dating from 2011 was drafted by a sub-group of the Planning Commission’s Working Group on Water Governance for the 12th

Five Year Plan (called the Draft here). Curiously, the Ministry felt this was not consultative

enough and proceeded, shortly thereafter to start a parallel process. Another reason the Ministry gave was the Bill should be in conformity with the existing Acts, Laws, Principles, etc., and some

minimum standards should be prescribed for the States for implementation and to prevent them from a Business As Usual (BAU) scenario. Earlier attempts on prescriptive laws by Centre have

not helped and States themselves have acknowledged that they require a strong push from the

Centre to make their establishment recognize the critical stage of water development. This statement seems at variance with the Constitutional provision that water is a state subject and at

the heart of setting up the National Forum.

The Ministry’s process of drafting the law was supposed to be more consultative; the constitution of the drafting committee that has a preponderance of government officers, and the process,

seems to have been anything but. Additionally, the 2013 Bill appears to be a weak and

incomplete version of the 2011 draft, which itself was ‘an umbrella statement of general principles governing the exercise of legislative and/or executive power by the Centre, the state

and local government institutions’.

A few examples illustrate this. The 2013 Bill mentions in section 6(1) that each state will set up

an independent water regulatory authority ‘for ensuring equitable access to water for all and its

fair pricing, for drinking and other uses such as sanitation, agricultural and industrial’ but its

decisions will be open to judicial review. While this in itself is problematic, the experience with water regulatory authorities is very poor. Only one exists in Maharashtra and has been

systematically emasculated by the State Government. The 2011 draft is more nuanced, stating the functions of water management institutions and emphasizing the need for autonomy.

By stating that a river basin shall be the basic unit for hydrological planning, development and management of water resources (Section 3-1), the Bill ignores the federal structure of

government and a principle of integrated water management: planning begins at the local level and federated upwards. This is something the Draft clearly states, in addition to saying water

planning must take surface and ground water into consideration. Rather than improving water management, the Bill is concerned with creating more government institutions. This will end up

confounding the already convoluted water governance scenario.

Again, the Draft clearly prioritizes water for life over everything else. It also recognizes the

universal right to water. The Bill is less clear in the priorities for water allocation, stating each individual has the right to 25 litres of potable water per day. This has no basis and hard-coding a

figure into what is essential a framework Bill will make it impossible to implement at an all-India

level. The other water priorities are unclear which is dangerous since water for industry can then be given precedence over water for agriculture or the environment.

The Bill has no mention of water conflicts and a redressal mechanism, or the role of women in

water. Both are dealt with in some detail in the Draft. Regarding major water projects, the Draft advises a cautious approach to minimize impacts on the environment and human beings. It also

restates the pari passu principle of resettlement and rehabilitation while constructing large

projects, that is ignored by the Bill. Likewise, there is nothing on augmenting local water availability through micro interventions. Significantly, the Bill completely ignores traditional

knowledge in water management, one of the main reasons for the current water emergency in the country.

The section of floods and droughts in the Bill takes an engineering approach of control, rather than a more intelligent one of minimizing their impact. Participatory water management is left to

Water Users Associations (WUAs), a problematic social construct as they non-representative. The Bill says the Water Resources Information System will be the aggregator and disseminator of

information; this System is closed to non-government users. There is a proposal to allow non-

government users access on payment of fee and an undertaking both of which will again ensure data exclusivity. Experience has shown that India’s water data is flaky at best, and the Bill is

silent on how to improve data quality. The Draft calls for total transparency of WRIS data that may help to improve its quality.

The Bill seeks to extend and centralize the country’s water bureaucracy while throwing a few

crumbs to local government institutions. In its current form it will create another water

management monster that will convert water into a resource to be managed, rather than a public commons to be held in trust by the State. There is a need for further debate if indeed the

Ministry is serious about a workable Bill that reflects the nuances of water management.

All in all, I feel this bill does not deserve to be called a framework law. It lacks most of the vital

ingredients for effectively managing water and seems to be oriented towards pushing large water projects and the ill-conceived river inter-linking project. I will write on the other two bills

separately.

Nitya Jacob, Centre for Science and Environment, New Delhi (response 2)

The Draft National Policy Guidelines for Water Sharing appears to be a cover for the

Interlinking of Rivers (ILR) project. Proposed as it is by the Ministry of Water Resources under the National Water Policy, it makes its intentions clear in several sections that state river water

must be shared equitably. In doing so, it makes a mockery of equitable sharing of water. What the Draft actually means is a dry state should get as much water as a wet state, Rajasthan

should have as much water as Assam. It says nothing of equity of access based on socio-

economic parameters but equitable distribution.

The Draft also seeks to apportion water management to the Centre. It makes no bones about this on page 1 - "India is a Union of States. Under Entry 56 of List I of the Seventh Schedule of

the Constitution, Parliament has overriding power of legislation for regulation of inter-State rivers and river valleys in the public interest." This, however, is unlikely to go down well with states

given the recent experience with the Cauvery Management Board and Punjab's decision to

abrogate water sharing agreements. The Centralisation of decision-making on water sharing is evident elsewhere as the Draft recommends creation of basin authorities under the aegis of the

Central Government.

States can export or import water that seems like opening the door for ILR again driven by the

Central Government. This import or export is not via virtual water but the physical transfer of the resource. ILR has received support even from the Supreme Court that in February last year

ordered the government to set up a committee to implement the project. The judgment says the committee should meet at least once in two months and submit a bi-annual progress report to

the Centre.

The Draft does encourage rainwater harvesting but curiously ignores storm water management.

Strangely, the Draft has dropped allocation priorities completely, something that has been pointed out in the Water Policy 2012 as well. It leaves allocation up to the states that will differ

from state to state. What is likely to happen, and we are seeing this happen more and more frequently, is diversion of water from agriculture to industry and cities. Thus, the policy legalises

water grabbing by industrialists and cities at the cost of agriculture. This will affect the livelihoods

especially of small and marginal farmers who depend on informal water markets; these will be the early casualties of this diversion.

The Draft should talk of equity in the local context. Equity in water sharing across states is

absurd as envisaged in the Draft. It would make sense to speak about providing every person

with access to water lifeline water, followed by water for livelihoods and then satisfy the water needs of industry or cities. Similarly, while water efficiency in agriculture is a critical need,

diverting water for more profitable use is myopic and will be politically contentious. The attempted revival of ILR is another cause of concern and the concept should be given a full and

final burial given its techno-economic stupidity. Finally, the Central Government's attempt to apportion control over water management to itself is unlikely to pass unchallenged and I hope

the states will move soon to block this Draft or at least seek major changes.

K.J. Joy, Society for Promoting Participative Ecosystem Management (SOPPECOM),

Pune

My comments on the Drafts Water Framework Bill are as follows

Reasons for setting up a new committee The apparent reasons for setting up a new committee, as given in the Alagh Committee

(henceforth AC) document are two: 1) drafting of a water framework act/bill would require wider consultation and the Iyer sub-group (henceforth ISG) did not attempt this, and 2) ISG “stipulated

ideal propositions but lacked stipulations for actions by Central / States Governments”. After

going through the AC document I did not get any feel that they had indulged in any sort of wider

consultation and except may be in a couple of places there does not seem to be any stipulations of actions by the central government or state governments.

In fact providing too many stipulations and prescriptions can go against the spirit of the

Framework law itself especially in the context of centre-state relations. The main purpose of a

framework law is to come up with a set of binding principles and norms within an upper bound approach so that the different states can have enough flexibility and freedom to evolve their own

principles and norms.

So my take is that the reasons given for setting up another committee do not carry much conviction. In fact very often the government appoints a second committee on the same issue

when the report of the first one is not in line with their thinking or not palpable to them. This

happened recently with the Western Ghats Experts’ Panel headed by Prof. Madhav Gadgil. Under pressure from vested interests the Ministry appointed the Kasturirangan Committee which seems

to have really watered down the whole thing.

So the best course of action could have been that the draft of the ISG (available at

ftp://ftp.solutionexchange.net.in/public/wes/cr/res-27061301.doc; DOC; Size: 128KB) could have been put for a wider consultation and debate and then taking into account the comments and

suggestions it could have been finalized instead of appointing another committee.

Similarities and convergences On some of the issues there are similarities in both the drafts. For example right to water is there

in both the drafts. AC draft prescribes 25 liters per person per day. In fact this is one instance

where it has given a specific stipulation. There could be a difference of opinion as to whether in a framework law the specific quantity should be mentioned or not as it is dependent on many

factors like socio-cultural practices, climatic conditions, technology and so on. So the best thing would have been to leave it as a principle saying that it is the responsibility of the state to

provide water in terms of adequate quantity and quality to all the people, irrespective of

citizenship, as part of a justiciable right. Or at the most indicate a range. Both the drafts say the first take should be for drinking water and sanitation needs (as pre-emptive uses)

Another area of convergence is on the question of pricing. Both the drafts talk about differential

pricing, pricing of drinking water and water for livelihoods to be priced at affordable rates (or

even part of the drinking water to be given free to the resource poor), and the other uses like commercial agricultural uses, industrial use, etc., to be priced high (economic pricing).

Both the drafts talk about the need for a central agency of data gathering and management.

Both the drafts also talk about the need for negotiated settlements of conflicts, especially inter-

state conflicts, and use the route of adjudication only as a last resort.

There may be other areas of overlaps and convergences too like the need to take a basin level approach to water, etc.

Areas of difference in emphasis

There are also clear areas of difference in emphasis in both the drafts. For example ISG report

does take a strong environmental perspective whereas this gets quite a bit watered down in AC report. ISG talks about minimum interference with the rivers, minimum extraction of water,

diversion, etc., whereas AC draft, though does talk of environmental needs, it sees it in terms of minimum ecological flows (see page 7 of AC draft)

Another area of difference in emphasis is that ISG draft lays more importance in seeing water as

a social good whereas Alagh Committee draft sees more in terms of economic good and this difference has implications for various things like inter-sectoral water allocation, pricing, etc.

The issue of pollution is another such issue. ISG is much more emphatic on pollution as it is

much more stringent and the penalty goes beyond the polluter pay principle and it says – “being

equal to what is required to restore the pre-polluted condition, and it should at the same time be ensured that the principle is not distorted to mean that payment authorizes pollution”. This does

not seem to be the case with the AC draft.

Though both the drafts have more or less the same water use prioritization, ISG draft gives more flexibility to factor in local conditions to decide on the priortisation of uses other than drinking

water and livelihood water.

Areas of major differences/omissions

There are also areas of clear cut differences and omissions.

One important area is inter-state water allocation. In fact one of the important reasons for the

Water Framework law is that it can help in resolving inter-state conflicts. One of the major gaps has been that there is an absence of clear cut understanding and norms around the issue of how

to share river waters across different riparian states. AC draft does not throw much light on this except a very general statement like the following, “The appropriate Government shall lay down

principles for allocation of water resources for amicable resolution of differences and disputes”. ISG gives an elaborate set of guidelines and principles in this regard. ISG also provides detailed

institutional framework – nested and federated – to be built from below and also puts more

emphasis on the principle of subsidiarity.

Another major area of omission in the AC draft is with regard to large projects. In fact one of the conflicting issues in India, apart from inter-state disputes, is how we go about the large projects.

AC draft does not say much on this issue whereas ISG draft lays out in detail the processes,

principles that need to be adhered to– assessment of all options, selection of least cost options (both environment and social), prior informed consent of the affected people and proper

rehabilitation on a pari pasu basis – which are in line with WCD recommendations. It is rather shocking that the AC draft does not even mention the issue of displacement and resettlement

(unless I have missed something here).

On the issue of privatization and water markets there seems to be major differences. Of course

both say that the right to water should not be impacted in any way because of privatization of service delivery. However the ISG takes clear stand against privatisation of the resource itself and

it talks of privatization of service delivery only under very stringent conditions. It also takes a clearer stand on water markets especially on bottling of water or industries using raw water and

puts certain conditions.

ISG has a small separate section on women, being sensitive of women’s special needs. However,

the AC draft is completely women blind.

AC draft strongly argues for water regulatory bodies to be set up in each state, where as ISG

takes a cautious approach on regulatory bodies and also puts in certain conditions.

One of the areas of institutional conflicts in natural resource management has been between community based organisations (CBOs) like WUAs, Watershed Committees, etc., and the PRIs.

ISG does problematise this relationship and suggests ways as how to bring the CBOs under the

overall purview of PRIs while providing space for CBOs to take specific tasks/functions. The AC

draft gives lot of importance to WUAs and has also suggested the need to empower them.

Finally there is the issue of which drives what – should the existing laws and legal framework around water shape the water framework law or a freshly conceived framework law that is

informed of the bio-physical and socio-cultural peculiarities of water should be used to review

and reform the existing laws? Of course it cannot be black and white and there could be a relationship between the two. However, the AC draft is more in line with the former (primarily

the existing legal framework shaping the framework law) whereas the ISG draft is in line with the latter. If one agrees that the existing water related laws are not very well informed by the bio-

physical and socio-cultural peculiarities of water as a resource then one could say that what the ISG has done stands a better chance in restructuring the water sector in more sustainable,

equitable, efficient and democratic lines.

Which draft and where do we go from here?

In the light of the above comments and observations I would suggest that the Ministry of Water resources (MoWR) should treat the draft by ISG as the base document for re-work and revision. I

am not saying this because I was member of ISG, but saying it because the ISG draft seems to

be much better organsied and also carries many more fresh ideas that can re-orient/restructure the water sector in India in more sustainable, equitable, efficient and democratic lines. Some of

the elements/ideas of the AC draft could be incorporated into the ISG draft.

Also, since the Water Framework Law would have very serious implications there should be more discussions and debates on it and the MoWR should not be in a hurry to finalise it. This would

mean 1) extend the deadline of 31st July by another six months or so, 2) make both the drafts

available in various regional/local languages, and 3) hold extensive consultative meetings (at different levels) in collaboration with NGOs/CSOs and academic institutions.

Ramaswamy R. Iyer, New Delhi

In commenting on the Alagh Committee’s draft National Water Framework Law (hereafter

the AC draft), now in the public domain for comments, I shall necessarily have to draw attention to certain differences between this draft and an earlier one prepared by me as the Chairman of a

sub-group set up by the Planning Commission (hereafter the RRI draft), available on the website

of the Planning Commission. I shall try to do so in a fair and objective manner to the best of my ability.

I.General comments

(1) Framework Law?

‘Framework law’ was a term – so far as I know, new in the Indian context - introduced by me to

indicate that the intention was not to propose a substantive, operational Central water law (which would have run counter to the constitutional division of legislative power relating to water

between the Centre and the States), but to lay down a framework of governing general principles within which the constitutionally ordained legislative and/or executive powers of the three levels

(Centre, the States and PRIs) would be exercised. This intention was by and large adhered to in

the RRI draft. I thought that this was the strength of that draft, but the Ministry of Water Resources regarded it as a weakness. The AC draft borrows the term but it is not really a (draft)

framework law; it is a (draft) substantive law. It includes mandatory provisions and sets tasks. This would not be a valid objection to the draft if MoWR is able to secure the concurrence of the

States in it, and Parliament passes it. However, the term ‘Framework Bill’ is a misleading description of the AC draft.

(2) Overarching principles?

The orientations of the two drafts are different. The RRI draft explicitly adopts ecology, harmony, equity and social justice as a set of overarching principles governing the proposed law, whereas

the AC draft is essentially managerial-cum-economic in its orientation. (Incidentally, the RRI draft makes very sparing use of the word ‘management’.) The free use of terms such as ‘development’

‘management’, etc, by the AC draft reflects an instrumental view of water as a ‘resource’ for

human use to be controlled, harnessed, and manipulated. If this is what the country wants, then that is what will be legislated. We cannot force Parliament and the State Legislatures to adopt

ecology, equity, etc, as overarching principles. However, they are unlikely to be aware that they are implicitly making a choice between alternative orientations.

(3) Water: other dimensions and aspects:

Even if the draft Bill were to take note of ecology, equity and social justice, it would still fail to

note certain other dimensions or aspects of water, as also the intimate, vital relationship between a river or a lake and the people. These may or may not have any legal implications, but some

awareness of these perspectives in the law seems desirable. In the RRI draft, the multiple aspects and dimensions of water are covered in Sec. 3 (Water: Heritage, Ecology, Equity).

(Among other things that section of the RRI draft stresses the protection of rivers, calls for

minimum interference with natural flows, etc. It is regrettable that the AC draft makes no special mention of the deplorable state of many of our rivers, and the need to restore them to health.)

(4) Commonalities and differences between the two drafts:

On water markets and the privatisation of water services the RRI draft takes a carefully stated position, but the AC draft has nothing much to say about them; one must suppose that the

Committee did not share our concern about these matters. Similarly, the RRI draft takes a

cautionary, minimalist position on major water projects, proposes ‘least environmental impact’ and ‘minimum or no displacement’ as selection criteria, and lays down the condition of the free,

informed prior consent of the people likely to be affected. These matters do not figure in the AC draft. Here again there are doubtless differences of views between the two groups.

The concept of the water footprint figures in both drafts, but there is an important difference

between the two, as will be discussed later.

II. Detailed comments

1. Definitions:

Definition (i) in the AC draft: “Appropriate government”: The Central Government is not automatically the “appropriate government” for inter-state rivers, as the definition seems to

assume; that would be the case only if Parliament legislates for the purpose under Entry 56 in the Union List. It has not done so either in relation to particular rivers or in relation to inter-State

rivers as a whole. (There is of course the River Boards Act 1956, but it remains a dead letter.)

Def (vii) Ecological integrity: “..….means the natural condition of water and other resources

sufficient to ensure proper integration of biological, chemical and physical aspects of the aquatic and terrestrial environment”. To define ‘integrity’ in terms of ‘proper integration’ seems

inadequate. What is ‘proper integration’? Integration and integrity are two different things. The definition of this term is not at all clear. This needs to be looked at by a good ecologist.

Def (xii) Integrated river basin development and management: “…means the process of formulating and implementing a course of action involving natural, agricultural, and human

resources of a river basin therewith taking into account the social, economic and institutional factors operating in a river basin to achieve specific objectives”. The definition is unsatisfactory.

First, what does one mean by ‘developing’ a river basin? This needs to be defined. Secondly, what is the scope and coverage of ‘integration’? Why only the ‘social, economic and institutional

factors’? What about the ecological, anthropological, cultural, religious and other aspects? Apart

from aspects, should not there be an integration of different disciplines and perspectives? Would these ideas not be better conveyed by the terms ‘interdisciplinarity’ and ‘holism’? Finally, should

we manage a river basin or be guided by basin hydrology and ecology?

Def (xxvi) Sustainable use: “……means the use of water that is consistent with the long-term

sustainability of that resource and takes into account needs of future generations.” To define ‘sustainable’ in terms of ‘sustainability’ is tautologous or circular. Besides, it is not merely a

question of the sustainability of the resource, but also that of the ecological system of which the resource is a part. Please see the definition in the RRI draft: “sustainable use” or “sustainability”

means the kind and level of use of water or other natural resource that ensures the continued availability of that resource for the present and future generations, without depletion or

deterioration or dysfunctionality, and the continued healthy functioning of the related ecological

system.

Def (xxvii): water and water resources: These terms certainly must cover both surface water and groundwater, but what about wetlands, soil moisture, atmospheric moisture, etc?

2. Chapter II. Basic Principles of Water Management: (a) From Definitions the draft jumps to water ‘management’, reflecting the techno-managerial

orientation referred to earlier.

(b) Sub-sections 3(2) and 3(3), which are about the ‘planning’ and ‘management’ of water resources by the appropriate government and local authorities, have to be governed by sub-

sections (4) and (5) which are about water as a ‘common pool resource’ to be held by the state

in public trust for the community. This needs to be made clear. (Incidentally, it is not the ‘resource’ but the use of that resource that needs to be regulated.)

(c) Section 3 (7): “The appropriate Government shall take all measures to protect the ecological

integrity necessary to sustain ecosystems dependent on waters.”

Comment (i): Not only are ecosystems dependent on water, but water is also dependent on

ecosystems.

Comment (ii): The proviso to this clause talks about keeping aside a certain portion of the river

flow for ecological needs. Behind this lies the concept of minimum flows or ecological flows which implicitly gives primacy to human needs. In this way of thinking ecology becomes a supplicant to

human beings for an allocation of water (NWP 2002 had listed ecology as the fourth priority), whereas it is ecology which indicates how much water is available for human use. We have to

think in terms of ecological imperatives and not ecological needs. (This comment is not a ‘criticism’: it reflects a difference in thinking between an engineering-cum-economic perspective

and an ecological perspective. It is for Parliament and the people to decide on the perspective to

be adopted.)

(d) Sec. 3(14): Water footprint: The definition of ‘water footprint’ in the RRI draft is “…. the total volume of water used direct or in the form of goods and services embodying water, by an

individual or community or country as a whole, or by an industry or business in its production or

other commercial activity”. This definition has been adopted by the AC draft also. What the concept refers to is the total water impact of an individual or community or industry or the

country as a whole. However, in sec. 3(14) of Chapter II, the AC draft talks about nationally standardised water footprints for every activity or product. This can only refer to water

consumption per unit of production or other activity. Standardising and reducing this is a measure of efficiency and will certainly result in a reduction in the total water consumption of the

individual or industry, but the concept of ‘reducing the water footprint’ goes beyond this: it also

means abandoning certain activities or crops or products or industries. If a water-demanding crop or industry is located in a water-short area, then it must be given up; merely standardising

its water consumption is not enough. If the country as a whole is to reduce its carbon footprint or water footprint, it might have to give up certain carbon-intensive or water-intensive activities. It

is well recognised that reducing the ecological footprint of a country may call for changes in

lifestyles; this will also be true of the water footprint. In talking about standardising the water footprint, the AC draft shows a misunderstanding of the issue. This section needs revision.

3. Chapter III. Rights to water, preservation of quality and water pricing:

(a) It is not clear why three distinct themes have been grouped together in one section. (Incidentally, the title of the Chapter talks about rights to water, whereas the body of the chapter

talks about the right to water. The plural and the singular forms are not identical in meaning, but

possibly the difference in form was not intentional.)

(b) In the AC draft’s use of the term ‘right to water’ (Section 4), the focus is essentially on ‘potable water’. The right to water must cover not only drinking and cooking water but also water

for bathing, personal hygiene, sanitation, and related personal or domestic uses (with an addition

for women’s special needs). This is what may be described as the basic water requirement (BWR) of a human being (using Peter Gleick’s language). It follows that on the one hand, the ‘right to

water’ goes beyond ‘potable water’, and on the other, that some components of the right to water need not be ‘potable’.

(c) The AC draft limits the right to water to “a minimum quantity of potable water for essential

health and hygiene and within easy reach of the household”. This seems unduly restrictive. A

human being requires a certain quantity of water for life, life being interpreted as life with dignity. This is what the BWR mentioned above refers to. The quantification of this is difficult and

there could be different views on the subject, but this represents varying judgments on what is required, and not a range between a minimum and a maximum. It might be better to avoid the

term ‘minimum’. The RRI draft talks about the right to “sufficient and safe water to meet the

requirement of water for life”. (‘Water for life’ is defined as the water required for human survival, including drinking, cooking, bathing, personal hygiene, sanitation, and related personal

or domestic uses, with an addition for women’s special needs; as also the water required for survival by livestock and other animals and birds, and by wildlife).

(d) In view of possible differences of views on the quantification of the right to water, the RRI draft deliberately avoided mentioning a number, leaving it to be “as prescribed”. The AC draft

also leaves it to be prescribed by the appropriate government, but specifies a minimum of 25 lpcd. This is questionable from several points of view. First a common minimum ignores

differential requirements (if any) arising from age, state of health, sex, season, geographical location, etc. Secondly, the danger of specifying a minimum quantity is that the floor might

become the ceiling. An ‘appropriate government’ may feel that its obligation is only to provide 25

lpcd. (This danger will be accentuated in the event of privatisation of water services.) Thirdly, even if an appropriate government ensures the provision of a higher quantity, only 25 lpcd may

have the status of a fundamental right. In practical terms, defining the right to water as subject to a minimum of 25 lpcd may not be very different from defining it as 25 lpcd. The AC draft

probably did not intend this, but in effect the specification of a minimum may mean limiting the

right. The right to water must be stated in terms of certain uses of water and not a certain quantity of water. A fundamental right has to be defined by category of use and not by number.

(e) Further, the quantification, if any, of the right to water need not be identical with the

quantification of the minimum water that would be supplied free (to all, or to the very poor). 25 lpcd may be a reasonable limit for free water, but not for the right to water.

(f) In the RRI draft the right to water covers not only human beings but also livestock and other domestic animals and birds, as also the right of access of tribal communities to water sources. In

the case of wildlife, it lays down that their access to their natural water sources and the natural availability of water to them, shall not be adversely affected by human actions, plans or projects.

It is for Parliament to decide how inclusive the law should be, but the issue needs to be debated.

(g) The principle of differential water pricing (Section 6) is stated in very broad and general

terms in the AC draft. The RRI draft had stated it more elaborately. Further, certain provisions in the RRI draft are not found in the AC draft (e.g., not denying lifeline water on the ground of

inability to pay; a specific reference to ‘vulnerable livelihoods’; the inclusion in the water tariff of a provision not only for economic pricing but also for penal pricing beyond a certain limit of use;

the Polluter Pays principle not being distorted to mean that payment authorises pollution; etc).

(h) The provision relating to a Water Regulatory Authority (WRA) is included in the section on

water pricing (section 6). Is this an indication that setting tariffs would be the principal function of the WRA? One would have expected the WRA to be dealt with in a section on institutional

arrangements.

(i) The AC draft lays down the mandatory establishment of a WRA in every State. (The RRI draft

– Section 14 - is more cautious: it first elaborately states the principles and approaches to govern the institutional arrangements, and then says that if a Water Regulatory Authority is to be

established, it should be in conformity with those principles.) There are many difficulties with the idea of a Water Resources Regulatory Authority. Certain functions are important, such as the

inter se prioritisation of different water uses (apart from an absolute priority to ‘water for life’);

transfers from one use to another; promotion of the utmost economy of use and resource-conservation; obviation or conciliation or resolution of conflicts between users, between different

uses or sectors (e.g., agriculture/industry), between areas (rural/urban), etc; determination of water pricing; and so on. These call for institutional arrangements at various levels, but not

necessarily a WRRA at the State level. Further it is necessary to consider how a State-level WRRA

will relate to any institutional arrangements at the basin or sub-basin level, and what impact a State-level WRRA will have on the constitutional scheme of democratic decentralisation. A blanket

mandatory provision for a statutory WRRA in every State is uncalled for. One also wonders whether the Alagh Committee considered the report of the sub-group on a model Bill for a water

regulatory system (the Subodh Wagle report).

(j) The last part of this chapter says that “…available water, after meeting the preemptive needs,

shall increasingly be subjected to allocation and pricing on economic principles”. Pricing on economic principles would be perfectly in order for water for industry or commercial agriculture

or other commercial activity, but not necessarily for all uses other than preemptive needs. The term ‘preemptive needs’ must cover only drinking water, sanitation, etc, but not the water needs

of sustenance (or vulnerable) livelihoods.

4. Chapter IV. Water Resources Projects: Planning and Management

(a) It is not clear why ‘Integrated River Basin development and Management’ should come in a Chapter on Projects. This indicates that the thinking behind the draft is essentially project-

oriented. (Please see the earlier comment on the definition of ‘Integrated River Basin

Development and Management’. Please see also the earlier comment - in General Comment 4 - on the difference in the RRI and AC positions on projects.

(b) Sec. 7 (3): This borrows the language of the RRI draft (Sec. 8 (2) of that draft), but there it is

part of a long and carefully structured section on the basin and the aquifer as guiding frameworks (which has not been borrowed by the AC draft). The RRI draft proceeds to say that it

is only after ensuring the optimal use of waters within the basin that inter-basin transfers should

be considered, but this has not been reproduced in the AC draft.

(c) Sec. 7 (4): “The Central Government shall set up an institution at the national level for promotion, regulation and evolving mechanisms for efficient use of water at basin/sub-basin

level.” This is clearly a case of centralisation, and is inconsistent with the existing division of

legislative and executive powers between the Centre and the States. Under the existing dispensation, basin-level institutions can be set up by the Central Government with reference to a

particular inter-State river, or with reference to inter-State rivers as a class, if Parliament passes legislation to that effect under Entry 56 of the Union List. The proposed National Water

Framework Act cannot be enacted under Entry 56. If it gets passed in accordance with Article 252 (1) of the Constitution, action under this Section can be taken only in relation to those States

to which the Act applies. (This law can of course be passed forthwith by Parliament if water were

in the Concurrent List, but that is not the case.)

(d) Sec. 8: National Water Resources Information System: Why does this section figure under a chapter on projects? Please see comment (a) above in this paragraph.

(e) Sec. 8 (3): “An appropriate agency shall be set up for each river basin/sub-basin to collect and collate all data on regular basis…..” Who will set this up? The Central Government? Under

what authority? And what about building data up from the village and micro-watershed levels?

(f) Sec. 9 Management of Floods and Droughts: (again, why does this section figure under a chapter on projects?) Floods and droughts are entirely different in terms of impacts and the

responses needed. They should not have been lumped together. Besides, there is nothing at all

about droughts in this section, and hardly anything significant about floods. Further, the Committee could not have been unaware of the existence of a strong body of opinion that floods

are not necessarily or always disasters, and that when they are disasters, they are not necessarily or always natural disasters. (The RRI draft has quite a bit to say on Drought (Section

23) and on Floods (Section 24)).

(g) Sec. 11 Institutional Arrangements for Water Sharing: Subsection (2): “The appropriate

Government shall lay down principles for allocation of water resources for amicable resolution of differences and disputes”. The RRI draft is fairly elaborate on water-sharing principles, whereas

the AC draft leaves them to be laid down by the Government. If we are going to have a National

Water Framework Law, water-sharing principles (primarily inter-State, but also in other contexts such as inter-sectoral, inter-use, inter-area, etc) should surely be stated in such a law. This would

be one of the raisons d’etre of the law.

Incidentally, ‘appropriate government’ here cannot mean any of the disputing State Governments; it can only mean the Central Government. If so, the National Water Framework

Law should clearly say ‘Central Government’ and not use the coy term ‘appropriate government’.

(h) sec. 11 (3): “Data of all kinds with the exception of classified data, shall be freely shared by

the States concerned and put in the public domain.” The value of this is completely nullified by the reference to classified data. This begs the question: why should data be classified? The RRI

draft is more categorical on openness of data.

(i) Sec. 12 Groundwater Regulation and Management: (Please note that we continue to be in the

chapter on projects!) One wonders whether the AC was aware of the report of the Planning Commission Sub-group on a Model Bill on groundwater governance.

(j) Sec. 12 (3): “States shall manage groundwater…..” What is the legal basis for this? Under

existing law, groundwater is private property, linked to property in land. This needs to change but that is a separate exercise; it cannot be done through the NWFL. Further, there is a body of

opinion that favours community-based aquifer management. This again requires separate action. However, on what basis can we say that the states shall manage groundwater?

(k) Sec. 13 Urban Water Management: Again, this is in the wrong chapter. Moreover, this is not a matter for a Central law – unless of course the States accept it. (Further, should matters of

governance figure in a framework law?)

(l) Sec. 14 Industrial Water Management: “14 (1) Industries in water-short regions shall be allowed to either withdraw only the make up water or have an obligation to return treated

effluent to a specified standard back to the hydrologic system.” (a) The term ‘make up water’

needs to be defined. (b) The ‘either/or’ provision weakens the Section. It seems necessary to insist (as a medium-term goal) on zero effluent and zero net water budget (i.e., full reliance on

repeated re-use of water), and not allowing treated effluent to enter the water source. (c) This should apply to all industry and not only to industries in water-short areas.

(m) 14 (2) “Pricing of water for industry shall include efficiency costs and capital charges.” The water pricing sub-section has already laid down the principle of economic pricing. What does the

present sub-section add to that principle?

(n) 14 (3) “Subsidies and incentives shall be implemented to encourage recovery of industrial pollutants including recycling and reuse that are otherwise capital intensive.” How does this

relate to 14 (1)? If the law insists on maximum re-use, minimum make-up water, and zero

effluent, should it also provide incentives for that course of action? (Incidentally, the last phrase ‘that are otherwise capital intensive’ is not clear. The sentence needs redrafting.)

5. Chapter VII Policy Support Mechanism

Sec. 18: High Powered Committees at the Centre and the States: it is not clear whether these will

be planning/advisory bodies; or expert bodies for carrying out studies, providing consultancy services, etc; or decision-making/empowered/regulatory bodies. What will be the relationships

between these Central and State-level bodies; and between these and (a) the Ministry/Department concerned; (b) the Central Water Commission; (c) the Planning

Commission; (d) the proposed Regulatory Authorities; (e) basin-level organisations; (f)

institutions envisaged by Sec. 7 (4)?

This response is also available at ftp://ftp.solutionexchange.net.in/public/wes/cr/res-27061302.doc (DOC; Size: 68KB)

Jyoti Sharma, FORCE, New Delhi (response 1)

The fact that Water is a State Subject and that it is legislated upon by multiple ministries – both

at state and central levels – has led to a ‘Blind men and the Elephant’ kind of situation. Each one looks at Water from their perspective and their need only. Each one is busy snatching his bit out

of the Water Pie. This approach is largely responsible for the confusion and callousness in overall

Water Management. In this background, the Draft National Water Framework Bill 2013 is an attempt to bring some order into the chaos. Its agenda is simply to create a boundary which

gives the parameters within each state can manage Water as per its requirements. The boundary is necessary for sustainability of water sources and because the Water regime is shared by all. At

the same time, the states have the right to determine how best to serve the Water needs of their people.

In my work with multiple segments – from the poorest of the poor to large institutions, I see one

common factor. The psychology of scarcity has made us all selfishly acquisitive about Water. Whether as individuals or as corporate head honchos or as farmers or as Chief Ministers, our

agenda is to ensure that the needs of our peoples are satisfied – whatever be the cost to those upstream or downstream. In such a scenario, I feel, a clear set of directives as in the NWFL, by

the largest planning unit viz the Union Government will actually work for the larger good of all.

This becomes all the more important because the scarcity is bound to increase as the population increases and our lifestyle improves.

I think the NWFL has tried to balance the inherent contradictions in such a scenario quite well. It

sets clear cut responsibilities for state governments but does not take away their freedom to define how they will do so. Since the Draft Bill will become a legally enforceable bill only when

the political leaders pass it in parliament, perhaps this balancing act was necessary. It does have

some gaps and statements that can have negative repercussions – I hope the ministry will consult sectoral experts and practitioners to resolve them.

The Bill has been fairly successful in overcoming the problem of making the Bill ‘ Justiciable’. In

each clause, it states the framework directive and the actions to be taken by the state to define

legally enforceable details within the framework. Plus, the common principles to be followed for all clauses are listed. We must remember that each of its statements is legally binding on the

states that adopt it. By encouraging our state governments to accept this, we actually get clear legal tools in our work for Water for all.

It clearly defines Water as a ‘Common Pool Resource’ and the State as its ‘Trustee’. It states, that

even where some of its management functions are entrusted to others, the State will be

responsible to protect Water Resources for the benefit of all. Also that Water in its primary aspect as a sustainer of human life shall take precedence over other uses of water, such as agricultural,

industrial, commercial, and other uses. I think these statements by themselves, are a powerful handle for those of us who are fighting against excessive appropriation of Water resources by

some.

Water experts have been asking for Basin level planning – the bill makes River Basin as the

hydrological unit for planning. Experts have also been asking for minimal ‘Ecological flows’ in rivers. The bill makes it mandatory that a portion of river flows shall be kept aside to meet

ecological needs ensuring that the low and high flow releases are proportional to the natural flow

regime, including base flow contribution in the low flow season through regulated ground water use. The quantity however has not been specified –an expert committee for each River basin

needs to be formed to evaluate this.

Perhaps the Bill’s biggest contribution is in its firm and clear declaration of the ‘Right to Water’ - minimum quantity of potable water for essential health and hygiene and within easy reach of the

household. Though states can choose that ‘Minimum’ based on their Water sources, the bill

clarifies further that that cannot be less than 25 lpcd. Also that state’s responsibility for ensuring people’s right to water shall remain despite corporatisation or privatization of water services. This

is very relevant and powerful in the context of increasing outsourcing arrangements by ULBs.

The section on Pricing reinforces the ‘Right to Water’ as non-negotiable. It states clearly that

minimum quantity of water must be made available to all and the poorest must get it free of cost. Though pricing of Water is in itself controversial, the bill tries to soften the blow by

mandating differential pricing in favour of sustenance and food security. One major step forward is its directive for incentivization through pricing of use of recycled water. The section does give a

view of water as largely an economic resource – this is debatable. However, I wonder, whether,

with so many takers and a depleting source, it is possible to take any other view of water any

more…..

Mandating the setting up of a ‘Water Resource Information System’ with bottom up data integration, is a farsighted move. Our Water Woes are because of uninformed planning and knee

jerk reactions. In fact, all sections – particularly those on Project planning, basin planning,

groundwater management, Water Sharing arrangements, urban and industrial planning – further mandate data based planning and management and so reinforce this stress on shared

information systems. The bill further makes ‘Water Footprints’ and ‘Water Efficiency Benchmarking’ as the norms for determining demand for water for various uses and allocations.

With no data available on these, enumerating WFs and setting norms will be a major challenge however.

The section on ‘Industrial Use of Water’ makes for interesting reading. Allowing industries to only withdraw ‘make-up Water’ , filing annual ‘Water Returns’ and linking Water use efficiency to cost

of Water – are very welcome steps but I’m not sure how industry will react to them. Strangely, there is no penalty clause for defaulting industries. This segment could be made stronger.

Participatory Water management also gets a clear direction. The bill recognizes the current confusion in the status and role of Water Users Associations. It mandates that the relationship

between the WUAs and Panchayat / Municipality be clarified. Statutory powers to WUAs, retaining part revenues, consultative decision making, regular region specific data sharing and

capacity building of Water Users Associations seem to be positive steps.

Tucked away towards the end, is another small but potentially game changing segment on

Convergence and Co-ordination. It makes it mandatory for government at all levels to set up institutional mechanisms for effective convergence of schemes. It also sets up a high powered

committee and specifies its roles for co-ordination. I think once such institutions and systems are put in place, it is easier to push governments into delivering on promises.

Despite all its gaps, the bill provides a legal tool for citizens to demand their right to water and to penalize those who cause damage to an adequate, equitable and safe Water availability. I think

we should all pitch in to help remove its gaps. I am sure the ministry will organize consultations. But it might also help to meet the Additional Secretary, MOWR – Sh Mohan Kumar. (Ph:

23710619) The bill is being placed in parliament under Article 252 of the constitution. If 2 states

agree to adopt this bill, then the Draft Bill becomes a Law. However, the other states are not mandated to accept it. Perhaps, if the bill takes on a shape that citizens agree with, other states

may adopt it faster.

Ashok Sharma, Development Advisor, New Delhi

My brief comments in response to Jyoti Sharma’s post are summed up in just a few lines below.

Water now, a state subject, was not so in the past. Water being a state subject is not divinely ordained because water existed on Earth since the beginning and since when there were no State

Governments - no kings, monarchs or even the feudal lords! Since the beginning nature in its

pristine state handed over the rights of use of water, lakes, springs, wells, ponds, rivulets and other water resources in the hands of our people and local communities for their survival and

use. It is a pity to see that now that the governments, in league with greed driven corporations are stealing away this precious resource from the people.

Central and the state governments are committing an offense by taxing water and raising bills on

people for water use. While at the same time the government is indulging in brazen plundering of

resources that belong to the people and people alone! The plea that Government incurs expenses

in creating and maintaining distribution network in all cities is untenable and indefensible because in several metros municipal pipe lines are rusted and leaky and far below the permissible

health standards. So, state governments have no right to sell what does not belong to it! It can only recover distribution charges after accounting the depreciation cost on created infrastructure

which again it might have recovered several hundred times since it first laid the pipelines! Even if

it wants to charge per person per family distribution cost divided would still be less than one hundred rupee per person per family, if fairly calculated. In my view Water Policy needs a review

and every drop of water passing through the state must and must only benefit the people who are the true owners of all forests, rivers and water resources!

S. V. Govardhan Das, Centre for Hydrological Education (CHE), Hyderabad (response 1)

The Draft National Water Framework Bill 2013 lacks holistic approach and tries to address

several pertinent water-based issues in a piece-meal manner. There is un-stated tilt for national government’s control over the entire water in the country, overlooking the fact that water is

listed as a “state subject” in the constitution. It believes that human-beings can “regulate” water,

a rather arrogant assumption. I think the word “management” should replace “regulation”. The bill concludes that water is “limited”, but ignores the fact that the limitation is induced by the

water requirement, of populations and eco-systems forming part of a “hydrological system”, not matching the water availability at a given point of time.

The River Basin is considered as the basic hydrological unit for planning, development and

management of water resources. It is a known fact that the model of river basin organizations

remained a non-starter, in several parts of the world. The best a river basin organization could do was “arbitration” of water conflicts, on the request of conflicting parties. Though, river basins are

hydrological units controlling larger hydrological cycles, they are definitely not basic units of planning and management. The ideal unit of water management could be a catchment of a much

smaller stream, possibly of a third order (Govardhan Das S. V., and Burke. J., “Small-holders and

sustainable wells”, FAO, 2013).

The bill talks of a “master plan” at the river basin level. However, there is no mention of the content and processes that are essential to evolve such a plan at the highest level of a

hydrological system. Ideally, the master plan should be evolved from the lowest hydrological unit

(could be a catchment of a third order stream), involving local populations and professionals familiar with the local hydrological cycles. The master plan should assess the current water use

and availability in a hydrological unit and classify it either surplus (water availability exceeds current use) or deficit (current demand exceeding water availability). The master plan should

clearly identify the hydrological units with surplus and deficit water budgets, within a river basin. It is quite possible that a surplus river basin would have several smaller catchments with deficit

water budgets or a deficit river basin may have some catchments with surplus water budgets.

The intra-basin transfer plan should take precedence over the inter-basin transfers.

97 million people in India do not have access to improved drinking water source (UNICEF, 2012). The master plan should be able to propose a clear-plan to meet the basic water requirements of

the entire human population living in the river basin. If there remains scope for further

development, after meeting the basic demands within a hydrological unit (smallest to river basin), second priority to should go to agriculture (especially for food and nutrition security). The

minimum quantity (25 lpcd) of potable water for which every human has the right to access, suggested in the bill, is far below the international norms (40 lpcd). The bill should provide every

citizen this amount of water and then talk about water pricing and inter-basin transfer.

The framework bill considers water as an economic good and vouches for “allocation and pricing

on economic principles”, in other words to recover costs of construction and maintenance of water structures. This does not make any sense if the government decides where it will construct

dams and asks the users to pay through their nose. Does it means that groundwater users need not pay anything to the government for they meet all the capital and maintenance costs

(including electricity) on operating their wells? There is a separate section on regulation of

groundwater use in the bill. Does this mean that groundwater is not considered as integral part of a hydrological system, along with surface water, and to be managed in isolation? A better

approach could be to price water equally, irrespective of its form, provided the government (or agencies contracted) on behalf of its users constructs and manages all the water sources (both

surface and groundwater).

Demand management of water is seen as recipe everywhere. It is a known fact that certain areas

in the country suffer because of too much of water (floods and water logging) and demand management does not make any sense there. These areas need to grow food grains and fruits,

though they are water guzzling crops, keeping in view the national food and nutrition security. It is a good idea to have a policy to restrict growing of water-guzzling crops to areas where water is

abundant. Another related aspect is policy of blanket reduction of water footprints, which again

does not make any sense in water-plenty areas.

The bill does not suggest an institutional framework to manage waters at hydrological unit level. It sticks to the old administrative hierarchy (district, state and country). It does mention “River

Basin Authority” but not clear with its functions. It talks about several studies but does not identify any agency to conduct those studies. The bill does talk about NGO involvement but not

clear on their roles in water management. The bill often uses the words ‘community based

institutions’ inter-changeably with the words ‘local government bodies’ and ‘local authorities’. It also gives a new definition of ‘watershed’ and includes river-basin within this definition.

It is obvious that the bill is drafted to satisfy different stakeholders who are vocal and could

create trouble if their interests are not addressed. In its present form, the water framework bill

can satisfy: i) agencies in the water business; ii) groups who consider water as an economic good; ii) industries that pollute our waters; iii) people who encroached natural paths of

hydrological cycle or water bodies; iv) groups that would benefit from state-built water reservoirs and inter-linking of rivers; and v) the electricity pricing lobby. The bill has nothing to offer to: i)

people who still walk miles to fetch water for meeting their daily requirement; ii) farmers dying

due to recurrence of droughts; iii) communities losing their habitats due to periodic floods; iv) farmers who invested on groundwater sources and depend on electricity to save their crops; v)

communities in conflict with packaged water industries; and vi) groups that look at water as a human rights issue.

Finally, I think the draft bill has a long distance to travel, before it can be called a guiding

document for states on which to base formulation of their water policies.

Rahul Banerjee, Indore (response 1)

Being a grassroots water rights activist the question that I want to raise is what is the need for a

National Water Framework Bill? The second of the Dublin Principles for water resource management which were first adopted in the Conference on Water and Environment organised in

Dublin in 1992 under the aegis of the World Meteorological Organisation and which have since come to be universally acknowledged, states - "Water development and management should be

based on a participatory approach, involving users, planners and policy-makers at all levels. The participatory approach involves raising awareness of the importance of water among policy

makers and the general public. It means that decisions are taken at the lowest appropriate level,

with full public consultation and involvement of users in the planning and implementation of

water projects."

Now in the Indian Constitution there is a clear demarcation of responsibilities regarding water management. The Eleventh Schedule of the Constitution which lists the responsibilities of the

Panchayats and their Gram Sabhas includes the areas of minor irrigation, water management and

watersheds. The Twelfth Schedule which lists the responsibilities of urban local bodies includes water supply and sanitation. Thus, in accordance with the Dublin Principles and the Constitution

of India the management of water resources should be in the hands of the Panchayats and Urban Local bodies. This is environmentally sound also because any river basin consists of many

small watersheds beginning from the uppermost ridges down to the river and so logically water resource management should begin at the watershed level and move down to the river. This will

ensure both that water availability and potability is ensured at the local level and also due to

adequate base flow from the groundwater aquifers, which have been recharged sufficiently through watershed management, at the river basin level. Proper forest management, soil and

water conservation and sustainable agriculture which are also the responsibility of the Panchayats as per the provisions of the Eleventh Schedule will ensure that flood management also takes

place in a decentralised manner as more of the water gets recharged rather than running off.

Once the Panchayats and Urban Local Bodies have taken care of water resource management at

their level, then the residual water has to be managed by the State Government according to the provisions of List II of the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution. Only after this can the Union

Government step in when there is a dispute over river basin management between two State Governments as per the provisions of List I of the Seventh Schedule.

It is because the Panchayats and Urban Local Bodies have not been empowered both politically and technically to manage water resources sustainably and instead unsustainable agricultural,

water resources and forest policies have been implemented through Central diktat that we are today faced with a water crisis of gargantuan proportions. Instead of abiding by the Constitution

and the Dublin Principles and decentralising the management of water resources, this new bill

seeks to further centralise the management of water resources and aggravate further instead of solve the water crisis.

Therefore in my humble opinion this bill should be summarily rejected and instead the provisions

of the Constitution of India with regard to devolution of funds to PRIs and ULBs and providing

them with adequate training and human power to carry out sustainable water resource management should be implemented instead.

Shripad Dharmadhikary, Manthan Adhyanan Kendra, Badwani, Madhya Pradesh

Legislation to regulate and administer the country's water sector is a crying need, but the Draft

National Water Framework Law recently submitted by the Alagh Committee is a disappointment.

Whenever a dispute erupts between states over the sharing of river waters, or when the talk of

interlinking of rivers rears its head during discussions on flood or drought, a number of people

lament that the root of the problem is that water is a national asset but is falling prey to narrow parochial interests of the states as they control the water. There is then a clamour to declare

water as a national resource and shift water to the Union List or at least the Concurrent List in the Constitution, empowering Parliament to make laws related to water and putting power in the

hands of the central government to regulate and administer the water sector.

Such a step carries the grave risk of being counter-productive, leading to centralisation of

control, when the real need is for more decentralisation in planning and managing water resources. However, there is certainly an urgent need to arrive at a common understanding at

the national level on the basic perspectives and principles that should govern the water sector, and enshrine these into the legal and policy framework.

It is precisely to address this need that the Government of India has in recent years initiated steps to work towards a National Framework Law on Water. A committee to draft such a law,

headed by former minister of Power, Science and Technology of the Government of India, Dr. Y.K. Alagh has just submitted its report to the Ministry of Water Resources in the last week of

May 2013.

This committee itself comes at the end of a long process where several people and groups

pushed for a common understanding and for such a framework law for the water sector.

History

As the report of the committee itself acknowledges, the development of a National Water Policy -

when water is essentially perceived and de facto treated as a state subject - is a clear indication of this felt need. The committee report states, “It is this recognition of the need for a minimal

national consensus on certain basic perceptions, concepts and principles that led to the adoption of the National Water Policy (NWP) of 1987, 2002 and 2012. However, a national water policy

has no legal status. A national water law is, therefore, necessary to make the tenets of such a consensual statement justiciable.”

The fact was that many important principles and perspectives governing the water sector were emerging over the last few decades, but there was (is) no legal backing to institute them as a

part of the sector governance. This was the main factor behind the felt need for such a law. As water remains essentially a state subject, and as this law was more to provide the principles and

perspective for governing the water sector, it would have to be different from the normal laws.

Therefore, it has been conceived of as a “framework” law, in that its essential function is to provide a framework, albeit one that would be legally binding and justiciable, as that is the very

purpose of having such a law in the first place.

The National Commission for Integrated Water Resources Development (NCIWRD), set up by the

Ministry of Water Resources (MoWR), presented a review of the legal and institutional framework for the water sector in the country in its report in 1999. It observed that there is no legal backing

for many of the vital concerns that have arisen in the field of water resources development and emphasized the need for formulation of a comprehensive National Water Code.

While preparing the 12th Five Year Plan, the Planning Commission set up several working groups

to provide inputs. One such group was the Sub-Group on National Water Framework Law (as part

of the Working Group on Water Governance) headed by former Secretary, Water Resources, Prof. Ramaswamy R. Iyer. This was quite apt as Iyer has been one of the foremost, long-time,

and consistent advocates of such a law. It is not a coincidence that he was a member of the National Commission for Integrated Water Resources Development (NCIWRD), as well as

responsible for drafting India’s first national water policy (of 1987) as water resources secretary.

This sub-group prepared a Draft of the Framework Act, and submitted it to the Planning

Commission.

The 12th Plan document subsequently has incorporated the need to bring in such a law, as has the new National Water Policy, adopted in December 2012. This emphasises the urgency and the

importance of such a law in the Indian situation as well as the emerging agreement on the need

for it.

The Framework Law Drafts

The importance and the far reaching scope envisaged for the Framework Law is seen from the

Terms of Reference given to the Alagh Committee by MoWR. The TOR states:

“Even while it is recognized that States have the right to frame suitable policies, laws and regulations on water, there is a felt need to evolve a broad over-arching national legal framework

of general principles on water to lead the way for essential legislation on water governance in every State of the Union and devolution of necessary authority to the lower tiers of government

to deal with the local water situation. Such a framework law must recognize water not only as a

scarce resource but also as a sustainer of life and ecology. Therefore, water needs to be managed as a community resource held, by the state, under public trust doctrine to achieve food

security, livelihood, and equitable and sustainable development for all.”

Unfortunately, the actual draft Bill provided by the Committee belies the expectations set by the

TOR, and falls far short of what is expected from such a law.

Before we go into the details of the draft Bill itself, it is useful to raise another pertinent question. What was the need for a second draft to be prepared by the MoWR when there was already a

draft submitted by the Iyer Sub-group to the Planning Commission? One can infer two reasons for this from a reading of the report of the Alagh Committee. One, it says that MoWR was of the

opinion that “the National Water Framework Law needed to be evolved through wider

consultations with all stakeholders, particularly the State Governments.” However, there does not seem to be any evidence of any consultations with the state government by the committee.

Another reason mentioned in the report is that the Iyer committee draft “stipulated ideal

propositions but lacked stipulations for actions by Central / States Governments” and “was mostly

a statement of principles". It’s true that the Draft Act which has been put out by the Iyer committee has a large number of fundamental propositions. However, the articulation of these

principles is precisely the fundamental rationale for the Framework Law.

The Water Policy 2012, for example, calls for the Framework Law to be "an umbrella statement

of general principles governing the exercise of legislative and/or executive (or devolved) powers by the Centre, the States and the local governing bodies,” and of course, that it should

“recognize water not only as a scarce resource but also as a sustainer of life and ecology.” This is what the Iyer committee has provided. It’s true that these principles would need to be further

sharpened because the aim to bring an Act is to make these principles legally binding and justiciable. This means that they would need to be defined more precisely so as to enable proper

(judicial) interpretation.

However, the Alagh committee has not done that. Instead, it has re-drafted the Act, and in

essence has either diluted many of the principles, or has failed to enshrine the nature of water as a “sustainer of life and ecology” or the principles needed to ensure “food security, livelihood, and

equitable and sustainable development.”

For example, the Iyer draft starts by articulating the basic nature of water as heritage of

humanity, the duty of all - State and citizens - to protect and preserve all water resources, the need to recognise and preserve the integrity of water bodies like rivers, and the principle of

minimum interference in existing natural flows. The Alagh draft, on the other hand, starts the section on the Basic Principles with the clause “The planning and management of water

resources shall be integrated appropriately with the management of all resources and shall take

into account in an integral manner the local, regional, State and national needs.” Thus, the focus is on human needs.

The clauses following these do articulate the principles of ecology, equity, ecological flows etc.

but the formulations are much weaker. Many other similar crucial principles, including

participation, devolution of authority, data transparency etc. are weak or inadequate.

An example is the issue of basic right to water. The Alagh draft sees the right to water as being limited to only potable water. The Iyer Committee, on the other hand, defines the scope of the

right as “water for life”, and provides that this right includes right of access to “water sources including rivers, streams, lakes, springs, and others” for tribal and other communities dependent

on them.

While a complete analysis of either drafts or a comparative analysis of the two may be beyond

the scope of one article, one cannot miss the important conclusion that the Alagh committee draft Bill, even though it has some useful provisions, ends up missing the very aim with which the

Committee was set up. It runs the risk of creating a law that essentially maintains and supports

status quo, and helps maintain the current principles and ways of managing the water sector.

For the Ministry of Water Resources, the need is now to initiate widespread consultations on the Framework Law. While the draft by the Alagh committee would be a useful input to these

consultations, a better process would be to make the Iyer committee report the basis of discussion, and the aim to arrive at better and more specific and clear-cut articulations of the

principles and provisions so that they are justiciable. The earlier this is done and the earlier the

Framework Law drafted and legislated, the better it is, for such a Law is indeed needed urgently.

K.S. Viswanatham, International Consultant-Water Resources UNDP and FAO,

Hyderabad

I tried to cover only few aspects of the Water Framework Bill (Law) as already many of our

members have given their elaborate section wise comments.

My comments on some of the aspects of the National Water Framework Bill are as follows

1. I do agree with Dr K. Joy who has indicated that “area of difference in emphasis is that ISG

(Iyer Sub Group) draft lays more importance in seeing water as a social good whereas Alagh Committee draft sees more in terms of economic good and this difference has implications for

various things like inter-sectoral water allocation, pricing, etc.”

This was also indicated very clearly by Prof R.R.Iyer in his General Comment No 2 . Overarching

principles. However the Dublin principles in general but particularly 1 and 4 should have been given equal

importance for the Draft Water Framework which I am reproducing for ready reference.

Principle No. 1 - Fresh water is a finite and vulnerable resource, essential to sustain life,

development and the environment Since water sustains life, effective management of water resources demands a holistic approach,

linking social and economic development with protection of natural ecosystems. Effective management links land and water uses across the whole of a catchment area or groundwater

aquifer.”

Principle No. 4 - Water has an economic value in all its competing uses and should be recognized

as an economic good Within this principle, it is vital to recognize first the basic right of all human beings to have access

to clean water and sanitation at an affordable price. Past failure to recognize the economic value of water has led to wasteful and environmentally damaging uses of the resource. Managing water

as an economic good is an important way of achieving efficient and equitable use, and of

encouraging conservation and protection of water resources.

My comment is that ending fragmented responsibility for water and integrating water resources management (IWRM) across all sectors – finance, planning, agriculture, energy, tourism,

industry, education and health.” by incorporating all the Dublin Principles in the approach for the draft Water Bill.

2. Prof R.R. Iyer is correct in questioning the legal basis in respect to ground water management which I am reproducing here as I am of the same opinion.

Sec. 12 (3): “States shall manage groundwater…..” What is the legal basis for this? Under

existing law, groundwater is private property, linked to property in land. This needs to change

but that is a separate exercise; it cannot be done through the NWFL. Further, there is a body of opinion that favours community-based aquifer management. This again requires separate action.

However, on what basis can we say that the states shall manage groundwater?

3. Regarding Water Regulatory Authority “The AC draft lays down the mandatory establishment of a WRA in every State. (The RRI draft – Section 14 - is more cautious: it first elaborately states

the principles and approaches to govern the institutional arrangements, and then says that if a

Water Regulatory Authority is to be established, it should be in conformity with those principles.)”

I agree with the above comments of Prof R.R. Iyer and add “that the assessment of ground water is itself a tremendous task. The aquifers (both unconfined and confined aquifers) extend

beyond the state boundaries. How do we account for the groundwater availability in such a

situation? As groundwater is an important source, this aspect has to be adequately covered.” (Like International Trans-boundary aquifers)

However establishing a Regulatory authority will not solve the above unless a very clear

understanding is arrived at both by the Central Groundwater Authority and the State

Groundwater Organizations on this issue. Even if regulations are in place implementation of the water laws calls for a serious debate by all the concerned.

4. The approach of the ISG (RRI) draft regarding institutional conflicts in natural resource

management has been between community based organizations (CBOs) and the PRIs is a welcome feature. The ISG Draft covers this aspect to bring the CBOs under the overall purview

of PRIs while providing space for CBOs to take specific tasks/functions. Dr Joy in his comments

emphasized this aspect. The WUAs need the capacities to be built and empowering them in a country like India is a gigantic task. The States have to respond to this aspect and give a clear

time frame.

5. I agree with Dr Joy’s comment- “the ISG draft seems to be much better organized and also

carries many more fresh ideas that can re-orient/restructure the water sector in India in more sustainable, equitable, efficient and democratic lines. Some of the elements/ideas of the AC draft

could be incorporated into the ISG draft.”

To do so more time to be given to accomplish the task of integrating the ideas of the AC draft into ISG (RRI) Draft and also take into account opinions expressed regarding both the drafts.

Ranjan Panda, Water Initiatives Odisha, Bhubaneshwar

Greetings from Water Initiatives Odisha!

This is in response to the Draft Water Framework Bill. The premise is incorrect, and the draft bill is lacking in many ways.

To understand any such draft document one needs to understand the premise on which it has

been set. To me, the Draft Water Framework Law bill has been set up on a wrong premise and has set a wrong precedence. The prescriptions have biases common with that of the National

Water Policy 2012 that talks about making water a tradable commodity, promoting corporate

grabbing of water and lacks a holistic approach. Detailed comments follow:

Set up on a wrong premise? The very way the draft has been prepared should be a matter of concern. During formulation of

the 12th Five Year Plan, a Sub Group was formed to draft a National Water Framework Law.

This was headed by Prof. Ramaswamy R. Iyer. This sub group, as part of the working group on Water Governance, should have ideally fed to the National Water Policy as well. The Water

Policy recognized the long pending need of a framework law that is supposed to be an “umbrella statement of general principles” in governance of the growingly scarce water resources but

resulted in formation of another committee under leadership of Dr. Y. K. Alagh. This new committee’s report therefore comes with biases of the new Water Policy, naturally.

Iyer has been a leading advocate for such a Framework Law and the report his committee provided was a thoroughly drafted relevant document. It needed discussion and improvement,

as do all other such reports. Ideally therefore Iyer Sub Group’s report should have been circulated in public domain and the process of formulation of the Framework Law taken forward.

By formulating another committee the government has not only wasted public money but set a

wrong precedence.

Taking a clue from the ToR of Alagh committee the government’s justification of not going with Iyer report was that the Iyer sub group draft stipulated ideal propositions but lacked stipulations

for actions by Central/States Governments and that it was mostly a statement of principles. A

framework law can only be a statement of principles as water is a State subject and such a law has been conceived only to bring in a common understanding and cohesion among all states for

overall water resources management in the country. One is therefore forced to say that the government had some hidden agenda in going for another committee. This also makes one

believe that decisions are taken by the Ministry and not the people of the country. And we can apply some of the common biases of the National Water Policy itself which has, for all practical

purposes, prompted the need for this Law. The first of such biases is to consider Water as a

tradable commodity after a minimum amount of entitlement is provided to each citizen of the country. This not only neglects the ecological importance of water but also the need of water for

ecology.

In a country like India, where we have struggled to adhere to pollution control norms and

environmental clearance norms despite of having stringent regulations, it would be too much to believe that such biases would favour social justice and welfare. This law should not work as

another tool to favour the big and blatant water abusers like corporate houses, industries and the urban rich. The proposed Law, which is just a framework law and is much needed for the

country, should also have clear cut means to ensure water to water itself for its ecological value to be respected and sustained. This is no ideal prescription but the need of the hour.

The introduction speaks of its lacunae

Before coming further on the process and the document, it is worth looking at the introduction chapter of the draft. I am surprised to see that the draft, in its introductory note, weighs

management of ground water than that of surface water. It says, “Therefore, water, particularly, groundwater, needs to be managed as a community resource held, by the state, under public

trust doctrine to achieve food security, livelihood, and equitable and sustainable development for

all. The fact that surface water is also stressed beyond limit should not be played down. This sounds like resigning to the fate of our surface water; or one could say it supports the obsolete

and devastating idea of creating vast storage of surface water through more large dams. A law is a law and it should not begin with such bias. The law must recognize that water scarcity is

more of a man made crisis at the moment and its solution does not only lie in regulating the existing resource but working towards recovering and recharging what we have lost or about to

lose. Or else no law, whatsoever strong it is in its prescriptions, can save this country from water

scarcity lead conflicts, chaos and feuds that may lead to complete anarchy.

Coming back to the way the law has been formulated, I would say that the govt. of India has set a wrong precedence by not taking the discussion forward from the Iyer report. The proper way

should have been to put the Iyer sub group report in public domain with special efforts to ensure

participation of large number of people of the country in debating this. The MoWR could have added its own reactions to this report while circulating the Iyer report for others to view and

comment. Then it could have organized consultations in each region of the country and this process could have been facilitated by the current committee if there was a need.

So this draft bill is set on a wrong premise and calls for a larger debate on the arbitrary way the

MoWR works. Further, the consultations have been so limited and cannot be termed as even

bare minimum considering the vast implications this proposed Law is going to have on the country’s water governance principles and structures. And ironically, contrary to what the ToR of

Alagh committee says, there have not been any consultations with state governments and no efforts seem to have been made to make the draft building process consultative.

The immediate need therefore is to: • Put both the drafts (Ramaswamy Iyer sub group report and the current Alagh Committee

Report) in public domain for discussion. It would be good to have a group of experts to come out with a comparative analysis of both the drafts to go along with these drafts for

creating a participatory and proper discussion.

• The MoWR should immediately organize at least one consultation in each state, in collaboration with the state governments, on these drafts and the analysis.

• In these consultations steps should be taken that all sections of the people are properly represented. Most importantly the local self-government representatives, Members of

Legislative Assemblies, Members of Parliaments, representatives from civil society, officials of all departments related to water, agriculture, industries, urban development,

etc.

• And for the above process the MoWR should take more time. Just putting one draft on the internet and seeking comments within a month is grossly inadequate and uncalled

for. • The draft bill says it had four consultations. The MoWR should provide the pubic with the

detailed minutes of all these meetings. This will help us understand what suggestions

and feedback came in the meetings, what was incorporated and what was not.

Other Comments: The Bill needs to be further inclusive in analysing the issues and challenges; and has to come up

with ideas that are visionary and not just prescriptions to tackle the present scenario.

• It would also be important to know what makes the Alagh committee talk about ensuring

a minimum of 25 liters of water to all. What is the basis of this calculation? The Govt. of India has a higher stipulated rate for each individual. Is it an indirect admission that the

Govt. has failed to provide the minimum requirement? • The need for ensuring water for livelihood to water dependent communities such as

farmers and fisherfolks should be clearly emphasized in the policy. The riparian rights

should be clearly defined and mechanisms mentioned to ensure this. • The bill should talk about maintaining free flowing rivers with their ecological restoration

and revival rather than talking about maintaining minimum ecological flow. When the framework law and water policy all are geared up for proper management and

governance of the water resources, what makes the Alagh committee believe that the rivers will not be able to maintain even minimum flow? This is a serious point to ponder

and again sounds towards resigning to fate.

• The bill has underplayed the water extraction by industrial and corporate houses. It rightly points out urbanization as one of the water guzzlers but does not mention that

indiscriminate industrialization, mining, thermal power plants and other such so called development that happens for promoting the current economic growth model,

urbanization and resultant life styles.

• It talks that "access to safe water for drinking and other domestic needs still continues to be a problem in many areas”. It should include ‘water for livelihood for

communities/people whose livelihoods are primarily dependent on water’. • It mentions that ground water is considered as a private property and hence misused.

Further, it talks about the problems with regard to fragmented approach in water management. It should also talk that the centralized structures of water storage and

management through large dams have also created whole lot of problem in this country

and have in fact not only led to aggravated flood conditions, unsustainable irrigation systems but also negatively affected the traditional irrigation systems that promoted

decentralized water conservation and management and are more sustainable. In fact, the proposed Framework Law should be proposing community rights over surface and

ground water resources and towards devolving power of water governance to local

bodies and community institutions with supporting hands provided by respective departments.

• The draft bill says, “grossly inadequate maintenance of existing irrigation infrastructure has resulted in wastage and under-utilization of available resources. There is a widening

gap between irrigation potential created and utilized”. In fact this sentence should also

include that large scale dam and irrigation projects have themselves been wrong steps and hence small and decentralized irrigation systems should be promoted for helping

irrigation projects of this country in optimal utilization of water in an ecologically sustainable manner.

• I support the draft when it says Rivers and other water bodies are highly polluted by industrial and urban pollutants and those they have been encroached upon. The

proposed Law should have clear cut prescriptions for freeing water resources from all

these encroachments and recommend for bringing in a special Act for River Conservation and freeing flood plains as well.

• The assessment of the situation by the draft Bill when it says “low consciousness about the overall scarcity and economic value of water results in its wastage and inefficient

use” needs to be restructured. Mere economic value of water will never help so long the

rich and powerful of this nation keep abusing the water resources in the name of ‘development’. What the country now needs is to understand the ‘ecological value’ of

water and that can never be quantified in monetary terms. Rather, calculating water’s value in ‘economic terms’ contradicts the basic principles of sustainability as because the

small chunk of rich and powerful would never bother about a ‘fine’ of ‘fee’ for the abuse of this vital life-giving resource. While it is essential to fix price for industrial and other

such use (that is not vital life and livelihood use) and charge penalties for abuse and

illegality, this should no way undermine the fact that water is an ecological resource and ‘fee’ or ‘penalty’ should not justify the use, abuse and misuse. Water resources planning

must be based on ecological impacts assessments at the basin and sub basin levels and a ‘limit’ to extraction should be drawn. Commercial pricing, as experience suggests so far,

does not stop misuse or abuse. So, the awareness should be on ‘ecological value’ of the

water more than the limited ‘commercial value’ it has in some aspects of use. • The draft raises concern saying, “the public agencies in charge of taking water related

decisions tend to take these on their own without consultation with stakeholders, often resulting in poor and unreliable service characterized by inequities of various kinds”. This

is very true and the Alagh committee itself should regard this as a principle for itself. This draft needs to be put in for wider discussion with all sections of people. As already

mentioned, the committee did not really have any wide scale consultations. It had four

meetings with select participants and there was no effort made to reach out to large sections of the country.

• The draft says, “characteristics of catchment areas of streams, rivers and recharge zones of aquifers are changing as a consequence of land use and land cover changes, affecting

water resource availability and quality”. In my opinion, it should mention specifically that

industrialization, mining and urbanization are majorly responsible for this. This will make the concern stronger.

• In fact the draft overlooks (I think very deliberately) the impacts of mining, industrialization and power plants (the three major contributors to water scarcity and

contamination now and destined to grow still faster and major in future years) on water availability and quality. That’s why under point 2.2 (viii), under basic principles, the draft

says “ Given the limits on enhancing the availability of utilizable water resources and

increased variability in supplies due to climate change, meeting the future needs will depend more on demand management, and hence, this needs to be given priority,

especially through (a) evolving an agricultural system which economizes on water use and maximizes value from water, and (b) bringing in maximum efficiency in use of water

and avoiding wastages”. In fact, keeping in mind the growing urbanization and

industrialization the country faces now, in which more than 50 per cent of people will shift to urban areas and industrial need of water would surpass all other needs shortly,

the first thing this draft should have talked about is bringing efficiency in industrial sector. And most importantly drawing a limit to extractive industrialization that would

put the ecology into so much of imbalance that water availability would be difficult, let

alone management. A country whose freshwater availability has reduced by about 80 per cent in last 60 years cannot afford to let loose such eco-destructive industrial and

urbanization growth. Each law and policy that this country formulates at this crucial juncture of time must realize, recognize and emphasize this in clear cut and strong

terms. The draft bill, as the water policy, fails in this count miserably. • The draft fails to recognize water as an ecological resource. The common principles of

water management, as drawn by the water policy, that the draft recognizes talks about

social justice and equity in water allocation. Water allocation has to have ‘ecological equity’ as humans alone don’t have a right over water. Supporting the principle of

‘minimum ecological needs’ exposes the lack of vision in the Draft Bill. The national water policy lacked this vision but a proposed law that is supposed to be a guiding

framework, can’t afford to do this.

• The draft also lacks in analysing the current and potential water conflicts and chaos in the country. The role of indigenous knowledge and special sections of people such as

women, indigenous communities etc. in water harvesting and management needs to be clearly recognized and mechanisms prescribed to integrate those in the planning of water

management. Water cannot just be planned as a hydrological matter where Engineers

and Bureaucrats decide its fate. Water planning has to properly integrate social, cultural

and ecological issues and principles. The draft Bill lacks in all this. • To no one’s surprise the draft Bill believes in an engineering approach to control

disasters. This has to be changed as engineering solutions to disasters have miserably failed in this country, and in fact have caused more disasters. There should be emphasis

on river basin management in ecological approaches and the draft should give special

emphasis on flood plain zoning, revival of rivers and surface water bodies and the related ecological aspects.

• The Water Users Associations(WUAs) on which the draft Bill lays emphasis when it comes to participatory water resources management are not a success in this country. They

have mostly been undemocratic bodies with lot of political and bureaucratic control of the powerful sections. This needs to be thoroughly studied and understood before giving

such prescriptions. The role of Panchayati Raj Institutions and other local bodies

including indigenous institutions should also be emphasised. As such also most of WUAs in this country have been formed under the designs prescribed by alien authorities such

as World Bank and Asian Development Bank. So, the draft should have a clear stand on institutions which will be promoted as ‘water conservation and management institutions’

that are formed on democratic principles, in transparent manner and free from the

bureaucratic and engineering clutches. The people of the nation should be the managers of its water. Government institutions should only play the facilitation role.

• Water Information should be up to date, transparent and freely accessible to all citizens of India. The current way of controlling information, even though this draft, is

unacceptable. Further, the draft is silent on improving data quality that is a vital component in planning water resources and governance

• The Water Regulatory Authorities (WRAs) in their current forms are structures that are

going to give more power to the water bureaucracy and related people. The draft should therefore make a proper assessment of the working of the WRAs where they exist now,

especially Maharashtra where these have not been successful. Further, role of World Bank, ADB and other external financial institutions in promoting Regulatory Authorities in

India should be done away with.

A Water Framework Law for a federal country like ours which is already a water stressed nation

has to be idealistically visionary and practically implementable. The Iyer draft had such a framework and needed further discussion for sharpening. However, that was unfortunately

rejected and a new committee was formed only to land up in a more lacking draft. The National

Water Policy called for a Framework Law perhaps because veterans like Ramaswamy Iyer had been lobbying for one. However, when time came to really draft such a Law, the MoWR failed to

take cognizance of a better draft for reasons they have not been able to justify properly. The Iyer Committee had a much better stand on water as an ecological resource and tried to give a

better vision on how to manage water resources of this country through such guiding principles.

I immediately urge upon the Govt. of India to give more time to debate on these drafts and to

take responsibility in facilitating such discussions with all state governments and people from all sections of the society throughout the country.

Rahul Banerjee, Indore (response 2)

I have already sent a response to the Draft National Water Framework Bill to the Water

Community. However, I want to add something more to it.

In India, there is a Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act 1974, there is also an elaborate process for sanctioning of construction projects on rivers after assessing their

environmental and social impacts in the Ministry of Environment and Forests and there is the

Central Groundwater Board and various State rules and notifications to bring about more

sustainable use of groundwater and ensure better recharge. However, all these laws, processes and rules are being blatantly flouted by the Government and corporations bent on earning profits

only to the exclusion of any concern for the environment. Under the circumstances legislating a new national water framework law without any hope of strict implementation is not going to

serve any purpose.

This critique applies equally to the proposed River Basin Management Bill which seeks to create a

super authority to control river basins with punitive powers that can overrule State Governments not to speak of Panchayats and Urban Local Bodies. In short, this whole exercise of centralising

the power of control over such a crucial resource as water at a time when it is urgently necessary that it should be managed in a participatory and decentralised manner is a dangerous retrograde

step that needs to be opposed with vigour.

Eshwer Kale, WOTR, Pune

We must critically focus on the lack of adequate institutional governance in the National Water

Framework Bill. No doubt, appropriate legal provisions and principles for judicious, sustainable and efficient water use are a must and we must advocate for these, but simultaneously the

critical analysis of institutional governance and governing agencies proposed (if any) in this act is also important.

With my reading I don’t find any major innovation/modification proposed in the existing

governing and institutional mechanism in the framework act, except the proposition of state level

regulatory bodies in the water sector (this experiment in Maharashtra has already delivered very poorly). In the water sector institutional governance (administrative capacity - in numbers, skills,

willingness, decentralized institutions, etc.,) is already weak and has failed to effectively implement the legal provisions mentioned in the earlier water laws and policies. The proposed

framework law (which is expected to be the Guidelines for the States) very loosely and vaguely

discusses the institutional/governance strategies to implement the legal provisions mentioned in the law. The Central government in the water sector since the last two decades has been

continuously developing advanced laws, acts and policies without making the necessary modifications - institutional/governing modifications. Therefore we must insist on necessary

institutional modifications in the national water framework law.

Bimal Prasad Pandia, Regional Centre for Development Cooperation (RCDC),

Bhubaneshwar (response 1)

Till now, we have had some fantastic discussion on the contents of the Alagh Committee draft.

However, I feel that the process through which the Committee has drafted the current Water

Framework Bill has to be questioned. Some of the key points that the Committee must answer are:

1. When the Alagh Committee almost blames the previous Sub-Group's report as not

consultative and places requirement of a new committee to accommodate ideas from

'broad consultation', how did they feel that just one colloquium is enough to satisfy the 'consultation' obligation?

2. When Alagh committee got fully satisfied with a single colloquium, why was the minute of

the colloquium not annexed to the report? Does this not hint subterfuge especially when minutes of the Committee's own meetings have been annexed?

3. When the ToR stipulates the Alagh Committee "To draft Water Framework Law considering

the provisions in the National Water Policy, Report of the Sub-Committee on Planning Commission Working Group on Water Governance and need of water resources sector in

the country", how did the Alagh Committee go through the Iyer Sub-Group's report and what did it accept and what did it reject? The meeting minutes that have annexed to the

report do not give us indication of any serious discussion on the Iyer Sub-Group's report.

4. When the Alagh Committee was aware that many state governments have already raised

objection to the national framework law kind of initiative, through what process they gathered opinions of the state government? Do opinions of state governments not matter

to the Committee? Do we agree to that proposition?

5. While we may agree with the limitation that a large Committee may not be feasible and

that such limitation hindered the diversity in composition of the Alagh Committee, we have to ask how the Committee proceeded to gather opinion of other key

departments/ministries both in the centre and the states; like Agriculture, Forest & Environment, Industry, Women & Child Development, Panchayatiraj, Rural Development

etc.

6. From the report we do understand that the Alagh Committee had four internal meetings. In

the first meeting the Chairman asked the Convener (Senior Joint Commissioner in the Water Resource ministry) to 'draft an outline of the framework law'. In the second meeting

the Commissioner placed the draft outline. The point here is that when a presentation by Prof Menon has been annexed to the report, why the 'draft outline of the framework law'

placed before the committee in their second meeting by the Commissioner/Convener was

not annexed? That would have given a lot of insight into how things progressed in the Committee.

7. Further, it was decided in the second meeting of the Committee that a sub-group under

the Chairmanship of the Additional Secretary in the Water Resource Ministry and

comprising representatives from CWC, CGWB and members Videh Upadyaya and Jyoti Sharma will 'prepare recommendations for drafting of National Water Framework Law' how

did the Committee not feel it required to annex recommendations of the sub-group of the Committee? If we have a look at the list of participants in the four meetings, we find a very

interesting absentee in the last two meetings. He is Upadhyayaji. Well, there may have

been other causes also. He may have forgotten to sign the participant register, or he may be busy elsewhere, or he may have been unhappy with the way the Committee or the Sub-

Group performed. But what is important is that he was a member of the Sub-Group and hence his absence holds significance.

8. From the minutes of Committee's fourth and final meeting it becomes evident that

Committee's discussion ended inconclusively as the draft was not ready by that time. It

gives an indication that the draft was prepared and, in all probability, also accepted without much intervention by other members of the Committee. In the fourth meeting the

Addl Secretary briefed the Committee that "the draft report of the Committee would be circulated through email by 15th May, 2013 and each member should confirm or

communicate comments by 20th May, 2013. Thereafter, a convenient date would be fixed

for presentation of the report to Hon'ble Minister before 31st May, 2013." This indicates that the draft was also finalised by the Additional Secretary and not the Committee. One

may argue that there is nothing wrong in that when the Addl Secretary is the Convener of the Committee. But, on the other hand being critical to that, does that not question

neutrality of the Committee or indicate less than ideal participation by other members of the Committee?

Some of the points that I have raised above may appear to be negative or insignificant in nature. But I believe that while judging the draft Bill, the process through with the output has been

shared may also mean a lot.

S. V. Govardhan Das, Centre for Hydrological Education (CHE), Hyderabad (response 2)

I think Eshwar Kale made an important point. I would like to add that the National Water Framework Bill should also suggest measures to improve "technical capacity" of institutions

involved in water management. Apart from this, let me also point out that the task of managing of water resources in the country seems slowing changing hands from technically competent

people to those with economic interests. I am afraid the the sector specialization will go into the

hands of economists (and probably lawyers) from the domain of hydrologists, hydrogeologists and environmental scientists. This is bad for the country. I strongly feel that the responsibility of

managing water resources should remain in the safe hands of seasoned and socially conscious professionals (formally trained at the university).

The future looks even grim as there seems to be little or no interest among the youth to choose water management as a profession. I wonder whether there is anything that this bill can do to

attract the youth to opt for subjects (at the university level) that are important for water management!

Dinesh Kumar, IRAP, Hyderabad

After reading several of the responses on the Water Framework Law and River basin

management, I thought of writing a few points.

In a country with 1.25 billion people, it is always intellectually very challenging to decide on

‘whose idea to accept’, especially when it is about managing something as complex as water resource systems, and everyone has a stake.

Anyone can draft a policy or law for water; but no one can insist that the government accepts it

as it is. For it to be acceptable, it has to take cognizance of the hard realities of our resource,

the people, the ethnicity, the society, and the economic and political systems. A policy or law would be finally made after a process of exclusion from a long list of ideas and intentions! That

said, anything which defies logic and common sense cannot be accepted. Let me out a few examples:

• That rivers should not be touched and instead be allowed to flow (as they were) and that

we should raise only rain-fed crops may not be palatable for an ordinary hydrologist. This

is because if we accept “river” as part of the hydrological system, the rain-fed crops also alter the same hydrological system! Remember, we had much lesser area under rain-fed

crops 100 years ago, and the rivers surely had a different flow regime.

• That we should not take water from water rich regions to water-scarce regions may not

hold much water, so long as they have different endowments in terms of access to arable land (with the former having lesser than the latter) and there are differential

demands…On the other hand, water-scarce region should be given ‘as much water as they want’ (because they are poorly endowed) also will be untenable.

• That “we should do rainwater harvesting when the droughts hits” (as a result of

monsoon failure), also may not hold much water either.

• That water is only a social good and therefore should only be managed by the communities also may not hold much water! So long as it is used for generating wealth

(crops, industrial outputs, beer, soft drinks etc.), it is an economic good.. When it flows out into the ocean, flushing out the pollutants, it is an environmental good. Let us make

a distinction between water being an economic good, and water being priced. These are

not “oxymoron”. Water being a social good, does not mean the resources or its services cannot be priced. On the other hand, water being an economic good, does not mean it

should be priced or it can be priced. Rainwater directly used in crop production is not priced anywhere in the World!

• It may not be appropriate for people who promote slogans like “making water

everybody’s business”, to fiercely argue for accepting suggestion from ‘X’ or ‘Y’, without

allowing it to be subject to any review.

• That large surface irrigation systems are expensive and bad and groundwater irrigation is cheap and always very good is also be untenable!

D. Johnson Rhenius Jeyaseelan, Bhopal

The discussion on the National Framework bill 2013 is really useful and adding to our

knowledge. My comments are given below:

Definitions:

• Eligible households – Loosely defined as priority households which will be based on political calculations and not on actual realities

Chapter II:

• Water is a common pool resource of the community and shall be managed, protected

and preserved as such by community based institutions – Planning, management and regulation will be done by government but management, protection and preservation

shall be done by community based institutions. This points out that the government still wants to be the big brother. The bill is silent on how community based institutions with

their skills and resources can manage, protect and preserve water resources.

• Demand management of water needs (point no 12) – Agriculture is mentioned but industries, mining are left out on economizing water use or avoiding wastages

Chapter III:

• Right to water: Potable water not less than 25 liters per capita per day – This cannot be defined as different people have varied needs of water. People living with HIV & AIDS

need more water than others. The min quantity should include domestic needs also.

• Potable water has to be defined • In water quality affected areas, minimum potable water of defined quantity cannot hold

as safe water is need for drinking, cooking, domestic, livestock, agriculture and others. • When it comes to poor “May be” – Eg. Point no 6 where …for the poor may be adopted.

Point no 6 again Govt may provide min quantity of water for drinking and sanitation free

of cost to eligible households. It should be “Shall be” • The focus is on making water infrastructure projects financially viable by subjecting to

allocation and pricing on economic principles after meeting the preemptive needs – The focus is clearly on PPP and about their sustainability. As any government can say that

they are at present providing potable water and have met the preemptive needs and handover all water resources to private companies

Chapter IV:

• It talks about establishment of institutions like water regulatory authority, River basin org at national and state level – The bill talks about establishment of more institutions which

is easy when there are so many institutions or org established by government will little or no objective. Also the roles of these institutions are very primary and loosely defined.

• Do industries not over draw water mostly? Point no 5 talks about prevention of over

withdrawal for agriculture but not for industries like bottled industries. Looks like the industrialists who influenced the national water policy have influenced this also. More

industries are in areas which are demarcated as “over exploited” by CGWB. Why can’t the bill talk of prevention of water intensive industries in these areas? In MP, Indore is

over exploited but all industries including bottling plants are located here • Point no 9 talks of safeguards to protect quality of ground water while giving licenses –

This means it has given license to existing industries to pollute and contaminate. It does

not talk about prevention or penalty for water quality contamination after giving license • Urban water supply shall be 100% metered and priced – This is ok but when it comes to

water for the BPL at subsidized rates it is “May be” and not “Shall be”. Why not rural water supply?

• The section on urban water management is silent on the source of water and

conservation – Many ULBs use ground water for the same. The bill should focus on sustainability of source of water in urban water supply

• Section 14 is very liberal to industries – there is no talk of appropriate agency monitoring the same. Here a regulatory authority can be proposed. Industries are allowed to be

established in water short regions also with no measures for conservation by CSR

Bimal Prasad Pandia, Regional Centre for Development Cooperation (RCDC),

Bhubaneshwar (response 2)

Please find a presentation which attempts to discuss the Draft National Water Framework Bill

with an objective to initiate a debate on that, available at

ftp://ftp.solutionexchange.net.in/public/wes/cr/res-27061303.pdf. The document has captured many discussions from this Community itself. In addition it has also tried to capture some

important points from the draft Bill. After I prepared this document some other very good comments, like one from Ranjan Panda have been posted in the Community. Unfortunately,

those have not been captured in the attached document.

Raman Kant, NEER Foundation, Meerut

I am sending some suggestions for River Basin Management Bill

• Indian society for centuries has recognized rivers as vibrant and nutrient system. Now it

is required that each river system is given the constitutional status of a "natural person".

• In the country, river land area should be notified as river protected area. River basin should be notified from the point of its origin, entering in the state up to the last

boundary.

• No treated or non-treated water or solid waste should be released into the rivers.

• In order to ensure independent flow of rivers, the riverbed should be notified as the river

protected area.

• In order to implement the river policy, a coordinated system of government and society

should be developed further such that both have their clearly defined roles in it.

• River water and groundwater are complementary to each other. So in order to manage groundwater, boring levels should be regulated along with the local community.

• Dams on rivers should be banned.

• Respecting the cultural diversity of the rivers, land formation should not be disturbed.

• Because the responsible role of the society is considerably important to manage the rivers, therefore all data related to the rivers, plans and projects related information

should be made available to the concerned public through appropriate channels.

• While planning river management, traditional Indian knowledge systems along with local

skills and techniques should be given priority.

• Continuous as well as strong mutual contact and dialogue between society and river

should be established.

• River - biodiversity should be preferred rather than utility.

• There should be a moratorium on the use of river water.

• Environmental flows of each river should be ensured.

Jyoti Sharma, FORCE, New Delhi (response 2)

I have already sent my response for the Draft Water Framework Bill. Also, I had discussed

with the Additional Secretary MoWR the need to take feedback from NGO experts for the NWFL. The MoWR will be organizing consultations soon. However, he has also offered to discuss with

interested people in his office. His office number is 011-23725477.

S.V. Vijaya Kumar, National Institute of Hydrology, Kakinada

I have gone through the Draft River Basin Management Bill 2012 and the following are my observations. Please bear with the criticism and suggestions as I feel any draft bill is certainly not

meant for applause.

1. The concept is nothing new, but old wine in new bottle. It is funny that it has a two tier

system namely a governing council and an executive board but has no body to manage the water resources as mentioned in the bill. It is left to the existing setup, the performance of

which is not so well. Its gears need to be in the hands of the Board rather than basin state agencies.

2. It is ridiculous that one member of parliament (MP) from each basin state, as nominated by

the speaker to for any river basin council, can take care of the basin whereas even if we presume each MP represents an area of 5000 sq. km area, for a river basin area of say

50000 sq. km we will need 10 MPs. 3. At least the Bill should have upstream downstream or upper, middle and lower command

areas in mind while selecting people's or water user's representatives.

4. All water users members or representatives of local/ urban bodies should have been elected

by their respective project user associations or bodies, but not to be nominated by state governments.

5. Eminent expert members need to be nominated by respective State technological /Agricultural universities in case of basin states and by respective IIT's / IISc / NITs in case

of state governments. But, not by either basin state government or by central government.

6. The governing council shall meet every quarter as things are developing fast nowadays. 7. The chairperson of the governing council shall be full time and a member of parliament but

not representing any basin state and of the rank of cabinet minister of Government of India reporting directly to Prime Minister of India.

Similar pattern may be followed in the case of the executive board to see the board has official

presence (of irrigation, agriculture, forestry, fisheries, environment, urban, industry, etc) though

out the command area.

Also, the entire management of water delivery will be undertaken by the Board on a daily basis and if the official machinery up to field level is employed by the Board they can be on the pay

rolls of respective basin state governments.

Deepa S Prabhu, Consultant-Knowledge Solutions, New Delhi

It is heartening to see some people mention urban issues too. The current situation in cities is that affluent citizens in high rises use potable water to wash two cars and food outlets/ in-house

outlets in malls use tanker water i.e. from unknown origin. Also there has been no reference or

discussion at all on: • water lobbies (also where water scarcity is caused due to activities of industries,

construction, etc) • packaged water industry (last estimated at what?)

• other related issues that point at industry-government nexus for commercial gain at the

cost of the middle class. (tanker supplies, rainwater harvesting, etc) • Rainwater harvesting is a loosely implemented vague law/bill

• Grey water usage - not mentioned at all.

Regarding the creation of new water sources it is not clear as to who will do this? Cities still use

artificial lakes created by the British pre-independence even as existing water bodies/lakes/ponds in cities are claimed by construction and buildings. These are important urban issues and any

bill/draft/report etc need to consider them especially for urban areas. I mention these points because while some urban areas are dependent on river supply, others depend on lakes.

Abhik Gupta, Department of Ecology & Environmental Science, Assam (Central) University, Silchar

Very informative and thought-provoking comments on the draft National Water Framework Law have been posted by the respondents in this forum. The discussion has covered a lot of

important ground on various critical issues related to water. I am giving my observations on a

few specific areas.

The committee constituted for drafting the framework law did not have any aquatic ecologist as its member. Perhaps as result of this omission, the role of water as an ecosystem and as a

habitat for its rich biodiversity represented by plant, animal and microbial communities does not appear to be on the priority list of areas considered in the law.

In the chapter on “Need for a National Framework Law”, in clause 2.2 (v), the phrase “minimum

ecological needs should be given due consideration”, and “minimum ecosystem needs” (vi) reflect the assigning of low priority to the ecological aspects of aquatic ecosystems. Why keep

“minimum” as an escape route? Why not go for optimum?

Some specific comments on the different sections and clauses in the Draft National Water

Framework Bill, 2013 are given below:

Chapter I (Preliminary) 1. The definition of “Ecological Integrity” [2 (vii)] has been given as “the natural condition of

water and other resources sufficient to ensure proper integration of biological, chemical and physical aspects of the aquatic environment.” This is a vague definition that allows too many

interpretations to suit anybody’s convenience. For example, even if a river has lost much of

its macrofauna habitats and diversity, it can still have certain biological communities, which can be claimed to have integrated into its chemical and physical conditions. Such loose

definitions could be used to justify alterations of an aquatic system for development projects by asserting that the “ecological integrity” has been maintained. We need more specific

benchmarks in terms of optimum pre-disturbance conditions and then try to avoid

unnecessary deviations and degradations.

2. Similarly, the meaning of “Ecological needs” [2 (viii)] has been given as “water required for sustaining essential elements of environmental entities such as terrestrial and aquatic

ecosystems”. It is again difficult to define what constitute “essential elements”? All ecosystems have certain degrees of resilience by virtue of which they can withstand stress

and degradation along with decimation of their biotic communities. Because of this resilience,

they can continue to exist in spite of fulfilling the ‘bare minimum’ requirements, which is, however, far from desirable. Hence, the Act should set ‘optimum’ and not “minimum”

benchmarks.

3. At the same time, the Act is bold enough to adopt the “precautionary principle” [2 (xx) ],

which advocates preventive action even if conclusive scientific evidence does not exist about the harm caused by a particular activity. But it is difficult to envisage how a pre-emptive and

preventive strategy like the precautionary principle could be adopted within a legal framework that advocates maintaining just “sufficient” “natural conditions” and meeting

“essential” “ecological needs”.

Chapter II (Basic Principles for Water Management)

3 (6): “Water in its primary aspect as a sustainer of human life shall take precedence over other uses of water, such as agricultural, industrial, commercial, and other uses.”

Comments: This reflects the anthropocentric bias of the law, where the rights and requirements

of non-human communities living in water have been totally overlooked. And like most

anthropocentric approaches, it is also androcentric and silent on the special needs of women and their unique relationships with water which go beyond use value to cultural manifestations.

On the brighter side, there are certain resolutions in this chapter itself that would help protecting

the aquatic environment, such as:

3 (7): “… a portion of river flows shall be kept aside to meet ecological needs …..” 3 (15): Water quality and quantity are interlinked and should be managed in an integrated

manner. 3 (17): Appropriate institutional arrangements at all levels to prevent dispute or conflict among

different water uses.

In Chapter IV (Water Resources Projects: Planning and Management) the Act has devoted the

entire section 12 (1-10) to Groundwater Regulation and Management, and yet neither in this section nor anywhere else, the document is silent on the vexed problem of groundwater

contamination by arsenic and fluoride in large parts of the country that has caused untold misery and morbidity to large sections of consumers and puts serious constraints on its use. Appropriate

management plans for these regions ought to have been framed in this document.

In an overall analysis of the pros and cons of the bill, it could still comprise the first step towards

protection and conservation of water, aquatic ecosystems, and their human and non-human denizens alike, provided the comments and feedbacks are examined seriously and adopted

without bias, wherever appropriate.

Nilakantha Rath, Indian School of Political Economy, Pune

Here are the suggested amendments to the DRAFT NATIONAL WATER FRAMEWORKS BILL 2013

1. Chapter 2, article 3 (12) (a): It should read as "evolving an agricultural system which economizes on water use and maximizes value per unit of water supplied to agriculture and".

This change is suggested to make it abundantly clear what is meant by maximizing value return to water. At present in most flow irrigation projects the use of water for irrigation is

such that the bulk of it is used for watering crops that produce the least value per unit of water used to irrigate that crop. The whole system of irrigation, the types of crops grown,

the value additions through the process, the proportion of beneficiary farmers, the more

equitable distribution of benefits from irrigation and even the extent of employment generation will undergo a sea change if this basic approach is accepted and adopted in all

existing and future flow irrigation projects. Indeed, once this is implemented, the whole need for the extraordinarily expensive scheme of linking of rivers will appear unnecessary.

2. Chapter 2, article (3) (13) should be amended by incorporating the following italicised clause: "Inter-basin transfer of water shall be considered, after the economic use of water, as

specified in clause 3 (12) (a) above, has been fully implemented in every river valley involved in the transfer, on the basis of merits and historical uses of each case after evaluating the

environmental, economic and social impacts of such transfers"

3. Chapter 2, article (3) (14): It is difficult to see how the "foot-print" of water can be

standardised for every agricultural crop for the country as a whole. It has to vary according to the rainfall, soil and climate conditions of the area. Therefore, this article needs

amendment. I suggest the following: "(14) There shall be standardized water foot prints for every crop separately for every agro-climatic region and nationally standardised water foot-

prints for every other activity or product, and it shall be the duty of the appropriate

Government at all levels, the citizens, and all categories of water-users, to endeavour to reduce their water footprint at every level."

4. Chapter 3, article (4) (2): In some places the available groundwater or even the surface flow

water may not be potable. In that case the local authority shall use methods available to

make it potable and the cost of such service should be recovered through appropriate pricing or local taxation. The following second provision should therefore be made in this article:

"Also provided that where the available water for domestic use is not potable, the local authority shall use devices to make it potable before supplying to the people and the cost of

this shall be recovered through appropriate pricing or local taxation."

5. Chapter 3, article (5)(1): The following should be added to this article at its end: "All

industrial units, mines, urban housing colonies, hotels, hostels and households with required open space around the building should be obliged to process all waste water from the unit to

a minimum standard of use by the unit and only the excess such water after use shall be let out in to the river or the disposal system. The quantum of fresh water to be supplied to each

such unit shall be net of the reprocessed waste water used by the unit."

6. Chapter 4, article (7). A new sub-article, number (9) should be added on the following lines:

"(9) Every person owning cultivated land that may be submerged by the reservoir created on a river for an irrigation project shall be compensated with cultivated land of equivalent value

in the command area of the irrigation project under that reservoir. The land in the command area for this purpose shall be taken from the beneficiary landowners in the command area in

an equitable manner." This provision is essential in order to prevent the loss of livelihood of

the farmers in the submerged area and the unhappy consequences of this. Indeed, it would be inadvisable to start a flow irrigation project without this method of compensation being

agreed upon by all persons concerned. There is no need to pay a price to the cultivators in the command area for the land taken from them for such compensation, since this will be a

part of the cost of the development of their land into irrigated land, payable by them.

R. Jagadiswara Rao, Sri Venkateswara University, Tirupati

The draft Water Framework Bill in its present form or in a modified or improved form cannot be expected to improve the availability of water of adequate quality and quantity for public

supplies, irrigation, industrial and other uses necessary for India to emerge as a developed

country. This draft on becoming a law no doubt helps in the creation of additional Departments requiring additional jobs for the existing bureaucrats, engineers and others to get promotions and

jobs for unemployed or under-employed educated youth.

India has a multitude of Central and State Government Departments performing overlapping

duties. The age-old centralised style of functioning of these Departments is such that all powers are vested with the heads of the respective Departments with little scope for the other staff to

show their merit or talent. Contrary to this, the contemporary departments in many developed countries have a number of subject experts acting in their designated fields almost

independently. Taking advantage of the security clause, most departments in India function in

such a secretive manner that very little of their work appears in their websites. This makes the staff to get along without doing much work.

For optimum sharing and utilisation of water resources within a river basin or sub-basin

(catchment) by the member states in an equitable and just manner, it is necessary for the concerned departments to appreciate that surface and ground waters are an integral part of the

hydrological cycle and collect exhaustive accurate information on each catchment, the area

occupied by different states and regions, water availability both in space and time, water lost through evapotranspiration, state-wise or region-wise water utilisation for various purposes,

water entering from any outside catchment, and water leaving to another catchment or sea, and show the unabridged data collected in their websites in different formats.

Taking advantage of the free availability of the Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) data of the NASA Shuttle Radar Topographic Mission (SRTM) using WGS-84 datum with a resolution of around 90

m and a vertical error of under 16 m, a beginning has been made by Central Water Commission (CWC) and Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) in launching the project “Generation of

Database and Implementation of Web Enabled Water Resources Information System in the Country (India-WRIS WebGIS)” to obtain details of various river basins and sub-basins. It must

be noted that the basin maps prepared in this way differ significantly from those generated by

other agencies using Survey of India topographic maps using Indian Geodetic Datum (i.e.,

Everest Spheroid of 1880 revised last in 1956). India-WRIS has recognised 25 river basins and 103 sub-basins with drainage areas expressed almost correct to a hectare. The data looks quite

impressive but for a few mistakes such as the area of Andaman and Nicobar Islands Basin shown as 6918.2 sq km at one place and 7577.85 sq km at another place. There is actually need to

recognise hundreds of more river basins which meet the definition of a river basin. For example,

hundreds of rivers joining the Bay of Bengal and Arabian Sea between major rivers qualify to be considered as independent river basins. It is worthwhile for India-WRIS WebGIS to consider

using high-resolution Google Earth satellite images available in the public domain as base maps for mapping the valuable database collected by large number of agencies to delineate water-

surplus and water-deficient regions on a micro-scale. This data will be of great use in harnessing untapped surface and ground water resources to the optimum extent.

It is noted that In contrast to India-WRIS WebGIS, the country has been divided by CWC into 22 river basins, by National Commission for Integrated Water Resources Development Plan

(NCIWRDP) into 24 river basins, All India Soil & Land Use Survey (AISLUS) under Ministry of Agriculture into 6 Major Water Resources Regions, 35 River Basins, 112 Catchments, 500 Sub-

Catchments and 3237 Watersheds, and Central Ground Water Board (CGWB) into 34 basins.

There is need for bringing consensus among various agencies and thereby avoid needless confusion. There is also need for India-WRIS WebGIS to obtain information on basin-wise and

sub-basin wise groundwater availability from the CGWB and incorporate in their website.

As India-WRIS website gathers more and more information on basin-wise availability of surface and ground water resources, it will be known that the quantum of surface and ground water

presently joining the sea in most basins is enormous. These waters should be put to effective use

by use of innovative methods. One way is to construct subsurface dams across the multitude of rivers before joining the sea (http://www.indiatogether.org/2004/may/env-subsurf.htm).

Similarly, depletion of groundwater locally owing to intensive exploitation of groundwater should be best tackled by taking up innovative methods of groundwater recharge practiced in developed

countries through Aquifer Storage and Recovery (ASR) and Managed Aquifer Recharge (MAR)

methods (http://www.iah.org/recharge/).

Dinesh Mishra, Barh Mukti Abhiyan, Patna

While most of the things have already been said, I want to add the following about the Draft River Basin Management Bill:

P-38: “ Where water sources, catchments or drainage paths have already been encroached

upon, efforts shall be made to stop further encroachment and reverse the adverse impact already made, to the extent possible.” Given the current governance status it is impossible to achieve this

target. The statement hints towards Flood Plain Zoning that has been a dismal failure. Recent

disaster in Uttarakhand is a living example of it. Barring three states, all other states in the country have not reacted favorably to the proposal. The states comprising of the Ganga –

Brahmaputra basin feel that the development in the state will come to a grinding halt if such laws are implemented.

Besides, there is not a word about water logged lands that have been created because of faulty planning and implementation of the projects. Since the state takes credit for providing irrigation

to farmers and charging canal rates for the same, it should also become the duty of the state to compensate the farmers whose land gets water logged because of the same project. Erosion due

to rivers is another problem that does not find adequate mention in the AC Draft.

P-38 (13): “Inter-basin transfer of water shall be considered on the basis of merits and

historical uses of each case after evaluating the environmental, economic and social impacts of such transfers.” There is no provision of any EIA in flood control projects according to the recent

(2006) notification studying impacts. Transferring water from the so-called surplus basins to protect people against floods in the deficit area should be dealt (if at all) with caution and the

provision of EIA must be introduced without any delay.

P-39 (18): This clause talks about the pricing of water that is totally tilted in favor of the

supplier. What if only bills, not water, flow in the canals or taps. There is no protection for the consumer who is expected to comply with all the orders (of the supplier). Privatization will make

the things even worse.

Chapter - 4 Clause – 9: NDMA and SDMA, NIDM, Departments of Disaster Management in

different states, CWC and IMD etc are expected to do this job and they have failed miserably in case of the Kusaha breach on the Kosi and more recently in Uttarakhand. Flood warnings were

not issued in time and only para-military forces and army had to appear on the scene to take care of the victims. Accountability of these departments should be ensured and periodic

evaluation of their performance must be done for their continuance. If it cannot be justified, they

should be wound up.

Chapter – 4. Clause 14, P-45-46: Industrial lobby is more powerful, at times, than the governments and does not care about the laws. The mechanism to tame the industry should be

strong and merely saying or suggesting something will have no teeth. The establishment that can take away bullocks of a farmer for non-payment of bills, generally, cannot touch an

industrialist.

Sureshkumar.S, CSIR-NIIST, Trivandrum

Water is primarily a State subject. The States have the competence to make laws, formulate and

implement plans and schemes for the development of water resources for water supply, irrigation, hydropower, etc. Several states have also enacted different laws. But, most of these

laws do not address the present concerns in the water resources sector in a holistic manner. Considering its critical importance in national development, water needs to be managed with a

national perspective based on the acceptance of a few common fundamental principles.

The interstate river disputes defy a solution despite the provision of a special machinery in the

Constitution. The Supreme Court, whose jurisdiction is excluded, has been liberally intervening under one pretext or other, making it more complicated. Sometimes the good offices of PM or

ruling party president is sought, which makes ties between states strange [as recently, in a few notable cases, including Mullaperiyar issue]

The verdict of the highest court can be declared null and void, and not implemented, by state legislation, which adds to the complexity, and politicises issues to a boiling point.

At the same time there is a vital need for comprehensive river and watershed management

programmes within a national frame and perspective, while at the same time reckoning with

genuine state concerns, through a combination of consensus and legislative/political approaches.

Philippe Cullet, Centre for Policy Research (CPR), New Delhi

Since I am sending comments after many other comments have been received, I am limiting

myself to a couple of comments on the basic structure of the two bills, the Draft National Water

Framework Law (DNWFL) and the Draft River Basin Management Bill (DRBMB). The first

concerns the extent of centralisation proposed through these bills and the second concerns the very limited reform potential of these bills in terms of decentralisation and in terms of moving

away from the power of eminent domain over water.

Firstly, with regard to centralisation: As pointed by some other members, one of the key issues

arising in the context of the DNWFL is that it really is much more than a ‘framework’ that could seamlessly be integrated in the constitutional scheme giving states pre-eminent control over

water resources. In effect, the DNWFL would end up having a strong centralising impact if it was adopted in its present form. That this is a concern is confirmed by the DRBMB that boldly asserts

that the ‘regulation and development’ of all inter-state rivers mentioned in Schedule 1 should be taken under the control of the Central Government (s 1.3). This is significant not only as an

assertion of centralisation but also because it confirms that this is really not an ‘amendment’ to

the River Boards Act, 1956 (RBA) but a whole new legislation. Indeed, the very premise under the RBA was that a board would be established ‘on a request received in this behalf from a State

Government’ (s 4).

With regard to the power of the state over water and decentralisation, several points can be

noted in both drafts. A positive point is that they both refer to the doctrine of public trust that is in principle a step ahead of the assertion of eminent domain by the state. Yet, it is well-known

that the simple labelling of water as being under ‘public trust’ is insufficient to ensure that the ‘trustee’ behaves in a manner substantially different from the ‘sovereign’ power exercising

eminent domain. Both acts reflect this. In the context of the DRBMB, s 1.3 uses the the notion of ‘public interest’ to justify the taking over of inter-state rivers by the Central Government. This

takes us back to the most obvious marker of the assertion of eminent domain, the notion of

‘public purpose’ which has been at the root of the exercise of eminent domain in the context of land acquisition or irrigation laws. The DRBMB is thus clearly conceived within a context where

the state plays a strong, domineering role which is not that envisaged under the doctrine of public trust. This seems to indicate that the recognition of water as a common pool community

resource may end up being little more than a perfunctory statement.

In the case of the DNWFL, similar problems can be identified. While its definition of ‘public trust’

could lead us to hope that this applies from the local to the national level, section 3.4 and 3.5 confirm that this is not what is envisaged. Section 3.4 makes what seems to be a progressive

statement concerning water being a common pool resource managed by local institutions (but

note that it specifically fails to put itself within the framework of the 73rd/74th constitutional amendments and talks of ‘community based’ institutions rather than ‘panchayats and

municipalities’). The problem is that section 3.5 makes it clear that when it says that the ‘state holds water in public trust’, it implies that the ‘state’ is something distinct from ‘community based

institutions’. Public trust in the DNWFL is thus again a top-down notion that confirms most of the existing powers that the state exercises under the guise of ‘eminent domain’.

On the whole, each of the two bills includes individual sections/sub-sections which go beyond what water law includes until now and in this sense they would help in modernising certain

features of water law. Yet, the underlying framework of both these bills make them bad propositions, for the reasons highlighted here as well as the various points mentioned by other

members earlier.

Achyut Das, Agragamee, Kashipur, Rayagada

The Draft National Water Framework Bill 2013 which is in public domain has raised many issues and our expert friends like Mr. KJ Joy and Mr. Ramaswamy Iyer have already given very valuable

comments.

I oppose this Bill taking into account the following:

• How pro-poor is this Bill? Does the Bill give the guarantee that the last man/woman will be ensured of his/her entitlements – the basic rights over water? There are clear biases

in the Bill in favour of privatisation. No specific tilt towards poor and socially excluded excepting a minor reference to people below poverty line in the Urban context.

• Whether our river systems which have supported lives and livelihoods of millions of

people since generations will be protected and restored? With Polluters Pay approach, will the river systems be free from pollution? If not who will be answerable?

• Whether droughts and floods which are often man made will be controlled? If not who will be held responsible?

• What lesson have we got from regulatory authorities already in existence in the field of electricity, telecom etc.?

• Will marketisation of water and conversion of water into economic good be beneficial to

the ordinary citizens of this country?

Those who are authors of this Bill should give me and the all concerned citizens some convincing answer before making into an Act.

I want to comment on a few points as follows:

• 4. Right to Water: It should be added as 4(5) with the statement that Right to Water ensures access to, control over and management of water resources by the communities

who use them for life and livelihood. Any violation means, people will go to the court to seek justice.

• 6.Water Pricing: The concept of Independent Statutory Water Regulatory Authority should be removed. The safe drinking water should be available to people free of cost. If

surplus water is to be sold, the pricing and market mechanism should be decided by the

elected panchayats/local bodies without the least interference of the state. • 7.Integrated River Basin Development & Management: The concept and practice of

IWRM should be removed. Instead of that participatory water conservation and management system should be enforced in the principle of catch water where it falls.

• 8.Management of Floods and Droughts: It has to be underscored that floods and

droughts are two sides of the same coin and they have to be treated as the two symptoms of the same disease.

• 13.Urban Water Management: Roof top rain water harvesting for each and every building must be mandatory and any violation should be treated with stringent action.

• 14.Industrial Water Management: Rigorous Water Audit system for each industry should

be in place where a citizens’ committee should examine the audit report placed in the Public Domain.

Avdhesh Pratap, Ch. Charan Singh University, Meerut

Kindly find below my comments on the Water Framework Bill

There is a free space in Water Law and Governance sector in our country. Our Water Law is very

underdeveloped and ignored area since independence under British empire, Govt. of India Act 1935 brought and initiated Water Law and governance and present scheme of division of water

under state list, (Entry 17,list II), union list (Entry 56 list 1) and concurrent list (Entry 20 list iii).

There is an urgent need to develop water law at national level, therefore it is a very good effort

in this area in the form of national water frame work bill. However there must be an honest attempt and clear vision to draft such a law to meet out the future challenges of water resources

management, over exploitation of underground water, water quality, water scarcity and climate change impacts on water resources.

The Draft Framework Bill is silent over the implementation of traditional practices of water

resources and water management and also there is no effective provision to protect water bodies and traditional water structures of the country. There is also lack of provisions to promote

indigenous knowledge to manage and protect water resources. However apart from all the objections and opposition by most of the states and with all the discrepancies, it is a very positive

step in the development of Water Law sector of the country.

Ashwani Wanganeo, Barkatullah University, Bhopal

I would appreciate if following points are considered for inclusion in the draft River Basin Management Bill:

Interlinking of rivers should be done for dissipating the storm water rather than constructing big dams for storing the storm water. Instead of Big dams we can suggest smaller barrages en-route

the river course especially in the vulnerable Hilly / mountainous regions.

Emphasis should be laid on joining the Perennial Rivers with Ephemeral River Courses. This way

number of problems arising on account of constructing big Dams can be brought under control. The interlinking of rivers will help in recharging the ground water as well.

The proper disposal of waste water and its reuse should be focused in the present draft while

considering the linking of inter State Rivers.

Ajit Seshadri, The Vigyan Vijay Foundation, New Delhi

Upon perusal of valued deliberations on this grave matter, I have a few points to add to the Draft River Basin Management Bill.

• The very concept of having appropriate River Basins ought to be spelled out.

• The sanctity of the Rivers, their basins, Water sheds and wet lands to be maintained well by the concerned authorities.

• Usage of all the above mentioned nature's-elements as waste (both liquid and solids) sinks to be stopped.

• Most of the elements as indicated above are to be designated as National Reserves and

protection measures constituted

Saurabh Singh, Innervoice Foundation, Ballia, UP

There is need to discuss openly about the NWFB. There are several issues that require views

from NGOs and experts. It is a very crucial subject and there should an open debate about the

bill. So, far there is hardly any debate or concrete actions on the issue. All state governments have their very narrow views on the subject and hardly abide by the norms set up at the national

level. We should have a session with them only then the deeper issues and all state government’s stand on the subject will come up.

It is just the beginning and should not be seen as final stage

Forum for Policy Dialogue on Water Conflicts in India, Pune

We (The Forum for Policy Dialogue on Water Conflicts in India) would like to submit the following

as our comments on the draft National Water Framework Law Bill.

The Honourable Minister

Ministry of Water Resources

Government of India

Sir, We are writing to you to convey the comments of the Forum for Policy Dialogue on Water

Conflicts in India on the draft National Water Framework Law Bill.

The Forum is a loose network of more than 150 organisations and individuals who have been

working in different areas in the water sector of the country and include many of the senior experts, activists and academics (see www.waterconflictforum.org for details).

Our comments on the draft National Water Framework Law Bill are as follows. Before we present

our comments on the substance of the draft Bill, we urge you that as the Water Framework Law

is a very important piece of legislation, the time given for comments is too short, and the method of inviting comments (by putting the Bill on the website, that too in English), is very limiting and

exclusionary. We suggest that the deadline be extended, that the Bill be translated in various regional languages and that wide-spread consultations are held all over the country.

Overall Comments 1. First of all, we would like to state that the apart from the Bill drafted by the Committee set

up by MoWR, headed by Dr. Alagh (Alagh Draft), there is also another draft of the National Water Framework Law. This is the draft prepared by the Sub-group of the working group set

up by the Planning Commission in 2011, which was headed by Prof. Ramaswamy Iyer (Iyer draft).

2. The Iyer draft, we feel, has many important features and provisions and we would urge that

any discussions and any action taken by the MoWR / Government of India on the draft National Water Framework Law Bill must consider the Iyer draft and not just the Alagh draft.

3. In fact, we strongly believe that the Iyer draft represents a far more detailed and nuanced drafting, and includes many of the key ideas and principles that such a Framework Law

should have; and that the Alagh draft lacks many of these key features. Hence, we feel that

in the further process of finalising the National Water Framework Law Bill, it is the Iyer draft that should be used as a basis to build upon. The Alagh draft can be used as an input to the

process. 4. Because of this, our comments also draw from and include references to the Iyer draft.

5. We feel that the Alagh draft, though it has several important and useful provisions, has many

shortcomings (which are outlined in detail below). Due to all of these shortcomings, adopting the Alagh draft runs the risk of creating a law that essentially maintains and

supports the status quo, and helps maintain the current principles and ways of managing the water sector.

6. The basic rationale for the proposed Law, and what should be its fundamental objectives is captured by very first paragraph of the Order issued by the MoWR for the Alagh Committee,

which also reflects the country’s new water policy adopted in Dec 2012 (Sec 2.1 and 2.2). It

states: Even while it is recognized that States have the right to frame suitable policies, laws and regulations on water, there is a felt need to evolve a broad over-arching national legal

framework of general principles on water to lead the way for essential legislation on water governance in every State of the Union and devolution of necessary authority to the lower

tiers of government to deal with the local water situation. Such a framework law must

recognize water not only as a scarce resource but also as a sustainer of life and ecology. Therefore, water needs to be managed as a community resource held, by the state, under

public trust doctrine to achieve food security, livelihood, and equitable and sustainable development for all. Unfortunately, the Alagh draft fails to meet these basic objectives or

expectations. On the other hand, the Iyer committee does capture these well.

Detailed Comments

Lack of Fundamental Perspective

7. Preamble, para 1 This is the only paragraph of the preamble that actually provides a background to the act. It

simply reiterates a limited background focused on a managerial understanding of water and

entirely sidelines social (inequalities in access to water etc), environmental (protection issues), legal (constitutional bases etc) issues.

8. The Alagh draft does not capture what should be the defining basis of the new law, namely, the recognition of water as a “a sustainer of life and ecology”. It gives much more weightage to

water as an economic resource. The very start of the Alagh draft clearly indicates this. The first section (after definitions) is titled Basic Principles of Water Management and begins with the

clause “1) The planning and management of water resources shall be integrated appropriately

with the management of all resources and shall take into account in an integral manner the local, regional, State and national needs.” Thus, the focus is on human needs and water management

for human needs. The clauses following these do articulate the principles of ecology, equity, ecological flows etc. but the formulations are quite weak.

In contrast, the Iyer draft begins the main part of the Law (after the definitions) with a section titled Water: Heritage, Ecology, Equity, and the subsections in this section capture the nature of

the water as common heritage of humanity, recognise that all water bodies are ecosystems by themselves and also parts of the larger ecology, and draw out the primary implications of this for

water management, namely , the need to protect and conserve them, the need for minimum interference in the flows, and the need to reverse the adverse impacts of the interventions made

till now. Many other key aspects are elaborated in the sections that follow.

9. The Alagh committee has not dealt with the basic principles emanating from the nature of

water as a central element of ecology, or from the issues of equity, sustainability in any holistic or comprehensive manner. It has mentioned various aspects of these in parts, spread over

various sections. But they don’t add to a comprehensive perspective based on water as an

element of ecology, nor do they base water management on the norms of equity, sustainability. Moreover the goals of food security and livelihoods are also not built into the structure of the law.

10. Iyer sub group report does take a strong environmental perspective whereas this gets watered down in Alagh committee report. Iyer sub group talks about minimum interference with

the rivers, minimum extraction of water, diversion, etc., whereas Alagh Committee draft, though

does talk of environmental needs, sees it in terms of minimum ecological flows (see page 7 of Alagh committee draft). We feel that unless a strong environmental perspective drives the core of

the new Law (as is expected from the TOR and the Water Policy 2012 which talk about the Framework Law recognising the nature of water as a sustainer of life and ecology), there will not

be any fundamental change in the way water is seen or managed. 11. Whereas the Alagh Committee draft sees water more in terms of economic good, the Iyer

sub group draft plays more importance in seeing water as a social good and this difference has

implications for various things like inter-sectoral water allocation, pricing, etc. We feel that there is a clear need for the new Law to emphasise water as a social good, as the TOR and the Water

Policy clearly require that “water needs to be managed …to achieve food security, livelihood, and equitable and sustainable development for all.” These goals can be met only if water is seen as a

social good and this defines its management.

12. Right to Water

The need to have a Right to Water recognised by the Alagh draft, but its elaboration is very limited. The Right is recognised only for potable water, not even for water for other domestic

uses. Though it does mention the purpose of this potable water to include health and hygiene, its minimum quantity mentioned (25 lits per person per day) falls short of meeting any needs except

that of drinking and cooking. The issue of quality is also not mentioned as an integral part of the

Right to Water.

The Iyer draft has a much broader notion of Right to Water. First of all, it talks about the Right to Water for the “requirement of water for life”. Thus, we can assume that this includes water for all

domestic needs.

However, one drawback common to both the drafts is that that neither considers water for

livelihoods as a part of the basic right to water.

We urge that the Right to Water be considered more broadly, that it should include water for all basic human needs, for domestic cattle, that it should also include water for livelihoods, and that

it should also include the right to adequate quantity and quality of water.

Water Regulatory Authorities, Privatisation

13. The Alagh draft seems to be propagating the same model of Water Regulatory Authority (WRA) as pushed by the agencies like the World Bank as a part of water sector reforms. In this,

the WRA is seen primarily as a tariff setting agency that protects the interest of (private) water

suppliers.

While the Alagh draft also mentions that the purpose of the WRA includes “ensuring equitable access to water to all” (apart from setting the prices), the inclusion of the WRA in the section on

Water Pricing clearly indicates how Alagh draft sees these Authorities.

It may be mentioned that the only such authority with some years of experience in the country is

in Maharashtra and this has failed abjectly.

We would urge that a much broader view be taken of “regulation” itself, that the need for water regulatory authorities (especially on the lines of the MWRRA) not be taken for granted but rather

subject to more discussions, and that any regulation must be structured fundamentally for

ensuring equity and sustainability.

Again, here we would like to recommend the more cautious approach taken by the Iyer sub-group and also see the Water

Regulatory Authorities as only one element of the larger institutional structure. 14. Alagh draft does not see any significant issues with privatisation (though it rightly emphasises

that responsibility of the state as a public trustee remains in spite of privatisation) or adopting the Water Regulatory Authorities in the current format. We feel that this can be a very risky

approach.

We feel that the approach of the Iyer sub-group should be followed. The Iyer sub group takes

clear stand against privatisation of the resource itself and talks of privatization of service delivery only under very stringent conditions. It also takes a clearer stand on water markets especially on

bottling of water or industries using raw water and puts certain conditions.

Lack of Emphasis on Participation

15. The Alagh draft is weak on the recommendations for participation of the people in the planning and management of water resources. For example, the entire section 7 on Integrated

River Basin Development & Management that includes the need to make River Basin Master plans, does not mention any participation by the people. Similar thing is seen in the case of

floods, or in the issue of reservoir operations. (Sec 9).

Section 10 on Project Planning and Management does mention participation, but its formulation is

very weak and betrays a limited understanding of what participation should mean. Section 10(6) says: (6) Local authorities, like Panchayats, Municipalities, Corporations, and Water Users

Associations, wherever applicable, shall be empowered and involved in planning and management of the projects.

Similarly, Sec 15 on Participatory Water Management seems to mainly talk of Water Users Associations, an important, but only limited part of participation.

We suggest that participation should be a core element of the new Law, and should be made an

integral part of the institutional structure of the Law.

Section 15 does not correct the basic problem of the relationship between constitutionally

sanctioned bodies of ‘participation’ (local democratic governance bodies) and water user associations. Panchayats/municipalities are already equipped to deliver on ‘participation’,

‘decentralisation’, ‘subsidiarity’.

While Sec 15(4) mandates that the appropriate government shall specify the relationship

between the two, this is something that must be taken up in this legislation since this is a constitutional issue in the first place, hence not something to be left to administrative directions.

Interstate Water Sharing

16. One of the major gaps has been that there is no clear cut understanding and norms around the issue of how to share river waters across different riparian states. Alagh Committee draft

does not throw much light on this except a very general statement like the following, “The

appropriate Government shall lay down principles for allocation of water resources for amicable resolution of differences and disputes”. Iyer sub group gives an elaborate set of guidelines and

principles in this regard. It (Iyer sub group) also provides detailed institutional framework – nested and federated – to be built from below and also puts more emphasis on the principle of

subsidiarity.

17. A major legal requirement in interstate water sharing, which is also highlighted by the Iyer sub-group, is that complete diversion of flows should not be allowed in any inter-state water

sharing. Only such flows after allowing for the ecological and livelihood needs of the river basin and basin communities riparian state (s) shall enter into the sharing formula.

Large Projects

18. Another major area of omission in the Alagh Committee draft is with regard to large projects. In fact one of the conflicting issues in India, apart from inter-state disputes, is how we go about

the large projects. Alagh Committee draft does not say much on this issue whereas Iyer sub group draft lays out in detail the processes, principles that need to be adhered to – assessment

of all options, selection of least cost options (both environment and social), prior informed consent of the affected people and proper rehabilitation on a pari pasu basis – which are in line

with the World Commission on Dams (WCD) recommendations.

19. We also would recommend that the Framework Law should outline how the already existing large projects in India should be dealt with. First of all, these projects should be subjected to a

periodic assessment with respect to their performance, capacity, ecological impacts, sedimentation, risk analysis, etc., with the participation of river basin communities. Fresh

Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) and Social Impact assessments (SIAs) every 25 years

should be recommended. 20. For the already existing dam cascades, environmental flows allocation below and between

dams should be assessed and implemented taking into consideration the present and future needs of the basin. Reviewing and reorganizing Reservoir Operations Management (ROM)

wherever found as an optimal option to improve downstream flows should be made mandatory.

Need to Modify Current Laws

21. There is the issue of which drives what – should the existing laws and legal framework around water shape the water framework law or should the existing laws be revised in the light

of water framework law? Of course it cannot be black and white and there could be a relationship between the two. However, the Alagh Committee draft is more in line with the former whereas

the Iyer sub group draft is in line with the latter. If one agrees that the existing water related

laws are not very well informed by the bio-physical and socio-cultural peculiarities of water as a resource then one could say that what the Iyer sub group has done stands a better chance in

restructuring the water sector in more sustainable, equitable, efficient and democratic lines. It should be pointed out that the new National Water Policy 2012 clearly indicates that the old

laws need to be modified in line with the new framework law, when it says that “Existing Acts may have to be modified accordingly.” [according to the new framework law which would be

based on the nature of water as a sustainer of life and ecology, and require water to be managed

as a community resource held, by the state, under public trust doctrine to achieve food security, livelihood, and equitable and sustainable development for all] (Sec 2.2 Water Policy 2012).

River Basin Master Plans

22. Among the important recommendations of the Alagh draft is the need to have, for all rivers,

basins, sub-basins, a River Basin Status Report and subsequently a River Basin Master Plan. The latter is to include the environmental protection plan including cumulative impact assessment.

(Section 7). An important part of this structure is that all water resource projects would have to conform to the Master Plan. (Section 10(2)).

Of course, since participation is not emphasised in the making of this Master Plan, there is a

danger that it can end up being a techno-bureaucratic exercise. Moreover, since the fundamental

principles of water as a sustainer of ecology and life have not been laid down so clearly, the Master Plans may not reflect these critical principles.

Section 7.2 which says ‘River basin or sub-basin shall be developed with unified perspectives of

water and ensuring holistic and balanced development of both the catchment and the command

areas, following the principle of integrated water resources management’ is an outdated concept. It should be changed to recommend ensuring restoration of the catchment area and improved

management of the command area.

We strongly urge that the Framework Law must include such provision for status report and river

basin master plan, however, both must be prepared with the full and meaningful participation of river basin communities and civil society.

23. Another important recommendation in the Alagh draft is that of preparing nationally

standardised water footprints for all activities and products, and that demand for various uses shall be assessed based on these standardised footprints and these demand assessments will

guide water allocation in the River Basin Master Plans. (Sec 3(14))

This important feature should be included in the new Law.

Water Quality Issues Missing 24. However, while 3(14) contains basic principles for water management devotes and a whole

sub-section to water footprints but water quality standards which are much more crucial only find

a mention at Sec. 4 in a section which is much more specific (whereas quality standards are a general issue that needs to be addressed in the general sections).

Groundwater

This section seems to borrow some concepts from the Planning Commission’s groundwater model bill, 2011. This is interesting but is not sufficient in this context. Two main points can be noted:

25. A principle like the principle of subsidiarity (12.2) is valid not just for groundwater but for all

water. There is no basis for distinguishing surface and groundwater on this score.

26. Section 12 borrows interesting elements from the Model Bill, 2011 but there is not enough coherence to what is borrowed to provide an overall framework for groundwater regulation

within which, say, the Model Bill, 2011 could be taken up. In a sense, it needs more drafting

work.

Definitions (Section 2)

Some comments on the definitions Definition of appropriate government

The definition of appropriate government concerns only interstate rivers and river valleys. In fact,

this definition should concern all water.

Definition of common pool resource The definition is fine in socio-economic terms. However, this is a proposed legislation and what

matters is a definition of the different individual and common entitlements over water.

Recognising that there are common entitlements indeed of primary importance but this must be done in such a way that they can be realised. The present definition does not provide a basis for

the same.

Definition of community based institutions Whereas ‘water user associations’ may be described as community based institutions even

though this is misleading since they exclude non-landowners from the membership, it is not

appropriate to put panchayati raj institutions at the same level since in legal terms they are completely different due to their constitutional recognition.

Definition of environmental impact assessment

This definition needs to be tied in with the Environment Protection Act and subordinate

instruments, in particular the EIA notification.

Definition of public trust This should make it clear that it is the ‘state’ at all levels from panchayats to the union

government that is concerned.

Some other Suggestions

Inter-sectoral and inter-ministerial co-ordination is critical to water management since water is an all-encompassing natural resource, and this should be added as an underlying guiding principle in

water resources management.

In the section on promotion of innovation and technology, we suggest the addition that the

appropriate governments shall encourage community monitoring of river flows and related ecological parameters as to enable effective implementation of river basin master plans.

We also strongly urge that accountability and transparency of institutions should be made legally enforceable and a punishable offence if violated. This should be added as a principle in the

section on institutions.

We also think that the Water Framework law should have a subsection on women. The Iyer sub

group draft has a small separate section on women, being sensitive of women’s special needs. However, the Alagh draft is completely women blind.

Conclusion

Given all the above, we would like to reiterate our major conclusion that the Alagh draft, though

it has several important and useful provisions, has many shortcomings (which have been outlined in detail above). Due to all of these shortcomings, adopting the Alagh draft runs the risk of

creating a law that essentially maintains and supports the status quo, and helps maintain the current principles and ways of managing the water sector.

Next Steps / Way Forward One of the most important issues with both the drafts is that there is a need to sharpen various

provisions and principles. By definition, the Framework Law is a “broad over-arching national legal framework of general principles on water” and hence it will essentially have principles,

perspectives and approaches laid down. These are by nature broad. At the same time, if this is a law, it necessarily has to be justiciable in a court of law. (In fact, this has been presented as one

of the reasons behind the need for such a law, as against a policy). It means that the principles

must be so articulated as to enable proper (judicial) interpretation. This is necessary not only for a judicial interpretation in case of contestation or challenge, but also to ensure easy and proper

implementation and to ensure consistent implementation by different states and different agencies.

This should be the next step or next task in taking the Framework Law forward.

Formulating the New Law The Ministry of Water Resources and the Planning Commission now need to initiate wide-spread

consultations on the Framework Law. While the draft by the Alagh committee would be a useful input to these consultations, given its inherent weaknesses, a more appropriate process would

be to make the Iyer sub group draft as the basis of discussion, and the aim to arrive at better

and more specific and clear-cut articulations of the principles and provisions so that they are justiciable.

Also, since the Water Framework Law would have very serious implications there should be more

discussions and debates on it and the MoWR should not be in a hurry to finalise it. This would

mean the following: 1) Extend the deadline of 31st July by another six months or so

2) Make both the drafts available in various regional/local languages, and 3) Hold extensive consultative meetings (at different levels) in collaboration with NGOs/CSOs and

academic institutions

Hope you and the ministry would engage with the above mentioned comments and suggestions

while deciding on both the content of the Framework law and the processes for finalisation of the same.

Steering Committee Members: Forum for Policy Dialogue on Water Conflicts in India (Forum)

Amita Shah, Eklavya Prasad, Gorky Chakraborty, Himanshu Kulkarni, Janakarajan S., Josantony

Joesph, Joy K. J. Latha A., Partha J. Das, Philippe Cullet, Shripad Dharmadhikary, Soma K.P., Suhas Paranjape

This response is also available at ftp://ftp.solutionexchange.net.in/public/wes/cr/res-

27061303.doc

Pravin Muchhadiya, Sahjeevan, Gujarat*

The Government of Gujarat is also executing a very big project (NARMADA PROJECT). But finally this type of big project is not working very well. Our government is investing huge amounts on

this but finally the Panchyats & communities depend for drinking water on their local source.

We at Sahjeevan have been thinking on three levels of sustainability for drinking water solutions.

1. Local source sustainability In village levels develop local source otherwise strengthening local source for portable water.

2. Local Institution sustainability (Panchayat) Building capacity of PRIs for water governance. Gram Panchayat should develop their

management system as well as governance for maintaining, protecting their source and scheme. Panchayat will take leadership and develop such systems for water governance for example

(form water committees under gram Panchayat, prepare asset register, prepare annual budget for Maintenance & Operating, Panchayat will collect water tax, Panchayat and Water committee

must share water agenda in Gramshabha and Panchayat meetings, Gram panchayat will protect

aquifers and catchment for protecting ground water)

3 Economic sustainability (set up Water pricing principal) We have been discussion pricing water for local water usage on a priority base. Recently many

villages have good and enough water but these are getting water from government pipelines.

The government has a pricing policy but they do not have proper recovery of water tax. The recovery rate is very, very low.

In this situation panchayats get government water free of cost. We are thinking of introducing a

volumetric tariff system.

* Offline Contribution

Nripendra Kumar Sharma, PHED, Guwahati*

I would like to put forward some inputs with regard to the situation in different parts of Assam,

which might get attention during formulation of the different clauses of the National Water Framework Law as proposed by the Ministry of Water Resources ( but such inputs may only be a

reflection in part, because they are not based on a documented study / exploration but on information collected from different field-oriented stakeholders). The issues related to public

concern and policies are addressed below.

(a) Water Resources and Necessary Management:

The right to water amidst increasing scarcity and food security has indeed become a great concern, which needs a well-oriented effort In general, the Northeastern states of India are

blessed with heavy rainfall, which eventually results in adequate and high groundwater table in most of the plain districts of Assam. Hence extraction of groundwater is easier and, therefore,

the drinking water supply in Assam is highly dependent on groundwater.

In urban areas, the poor coverage and unreliability of public water supply to meet the increasing

demand arising out of the extraordinary pace of urbanization and growing population has led to an increased dependence on groundwater. Indiscriminate digging of bore-wells has resulted in

depletion of ground water levels. The depletion of ground water levels is significant in areas

which have been witnessing rapid construction activities for the last few years. Moreover, in certain locations, groundwater sources such bore-wells/ring-wells (dug well), etc. dry up during

winter, leading to water scarcity. Every year there is a seasonal water crisis in the greater Guwahati area because of depletion of the ground water table, leading to a situation where deep

tube wells and ring wells dry up and the residents are compelled to procure water from private vendors at a premium. The problems of depletion of groundwater level aggravates due to the

recent phenomenon of climate change, which has led to erratic rainfall pattern in this region. In

the recent past, the rainfall pattern seems to have changed creating an impact on the

groundwater level and sometimes some of the small perennial rivers do not have enough water. So efforts should be made to capture region/basin/watershed wise information to encompass

water resources. So the scope of such water policy should, perhaps, include the use of water for drinking, irrigation and other conjunctive uses along with their extensiveness and impacts.

However, there should not be any Private Operator oriented approach to encourage different

forms of vendors to treat water as an ‘Economic Comodity’. Such provision is going to violate the basic right to water.

(b) Conservation and Protection of Water Resources :

The necessary approach for conservation of water resources is the most neglected issue in all peri-urban areas. Indiscriminate dumping of waste materials and release of wastewater

(untreated) into different water bodies is a common approach causing large scale pollution

leading to environmental degradation. The river ‘Bharalu’ flowing through the middle of the Guwahati city in Assam (India) has now turned to a dead river and in some portions, people can

not even stand on the river bank due to the foul odour, etc. Likewise, the Deepor beel, a famous Ramsar Site in Assam and a wetland very close to Guwahati city is also paying a heavy price due

to rapid urbanization and other anthropogenic activities. The beel, once spread over a large area,

has now been shrunk to a shadow of its former. However, there are different issues threatening the existence of the Deepor and they need to be addressed at the earliest. Large-scale

encroachment, dumping of solid waste, heavy siltation due to deforestation in the hills surrounding the beel, accumulation of all sorts of filth and toxic wastes from the storm

water/wastewater drains from Guwahati city, aquatic weeds, unabated industrial development in nearby areas, construction of railway line along the southern boundary, quarrying within the beel

ecosystem, etc., have threatened its ecosystem to a great extent.

So the need of the hour is the formulation of a Policy on strict conservation options / modalities

to ensure maximum efforts for the much desired Protection and Prevention of Water Resources and more importantly, the Wetlands for their meaningful survival.

(c) Operation and Maintenance (O&M) and Sustainability : The access to safe and sustained water has been largely undermined by poor O&M and the issue

of sustainability. The contributing factors are : • Poor ownership by communities due to dependency on the Government.

• Poor capacities, willingness and ownership by panchayats to maintain water supply

systems. • Limited accountability mechanisms for safe water.

• Limited initiatives on motivation / incentives. In Assam, the rural drinking water supply is managed by the Public Health Engineering

Department (PHED), Government of Assam. Apart from the Government initiatives, a section of the rural population rely on self-water sources, ranging from shallow unlined/lined dug wells

(Ring Wells) to the bore wells fitted with different types of water lifting devices, like hand pumps,

etc. Such water sources established on their own initiatives provide additional strengths to the government efforts/approach to ensure sustainable water supply and thus play a major role in

ensuring drinking water security in rural areas. However, to tackle the problems of adverse water qualities, the rural population needs to depend on government sources for safe potable water.

But, in case of the government water sources, although, they are nearly always used by the

household/community group, yet they become reluctant for owning the responsibility of O&M. This is because in rural areas, any form of payment (even the users’ contribution / tariff for

owning the process of necessary O&M) is uncommon (except few areas) due to their perception that the government is responsible, and their total dependence on the government.

However, in water scarce regions or considering the quality aspect with regard to safe water

supply, households and communities now have started coming forward with their own initiatives for improving the status of water supply services by managing the upkeep of the water supply

arrangements established by the government and sometimes even bearing the establishment cost, in part. So the government policy should focus on much of the ground-breaking work of

community (users’) management of water supply for achieving the desired levels of services in a

sustainable manner with due consideration to the importance of improved and safe water supply. Under the ongoing reform initiatives, the PHED, Assam, has made significant strides in recent

years, initially in putting community level ownership on the agenda, and now moving increasingly towards community involvement for O&M initiatives. In its efforts to encourage the community

(users) to actively participate in the O&M of rural water supply schemes, Users’ Committees are being formed under the guidance of PHED, Assam, for each rural Piped Water Supply Schemes

(PWSS) with the representative participations of the users from the areas covered by the PWSS.

The major role of such Users’ Committee is to ensure effective management of the PWSS including its regular O&M, creating social responsibilities in the form of ownership, regular supply

of water and also the liaison with the PHED in case of requirement of any technical inputs. Such an endeavour has succeeded in shifting the responsibility and the ownership of the rural PWSS to

the community (users / beneficiaries) in a result oriented manner. Further, cost recovery for O&M

and replacement costs, in part or full, has also led to the financial viability and sustainability of the schemes.

To boost such efforts, the Government of Assam has already introduced the Chief Minister’s

Award for the successful Users’ Committees of Piped Water Supply Schemes, namely “Uttam Gramya Pani Jogan Parichalana Puraskar (UGPJPP)”. Such awards have renewed the

commitments of the Users’ Committees to bear the social responsibilities with the true spirit of

cooperation and involvement.

However, the affiliation of such Users’ Committees to the PRIs still remains as an important issue. The PRIs are yet to take this responsibility to form such Users’ Committees and also the

monitoring and sustainability in this regard, due to the involvement of the PRI Bodies in other

decentralized programmes under the Panchayati Raj system.

In this regard the followings need to be prioritised : • The impact of the social movements through involvemnt of Water Users’ Committee, on

rural drinking water supply has already started rolling through social accountability,

which refers to the users' point of view – addressing demands / sustainability of supply and its water sources.

• These initiatives need to be institutionalized keeping in view their sustainability and the rural community’s needs to be mobilized to own and sustain these programmes

effectively. • The development agents, like NGOs, CBOs, etc., and above all, the community should be

properly capacitated to ensure effective social mobilization.

• Considering this, a participatory demand driven approach is highly warranted with a focus on necessary awareness generation amongst the community on the need for “total

water security”. • There is a need for a profound role of development workers/agencies to support

Government approaches and activities to pave the way for successful implementation to

prevent drinking water borne risks to ensure water safety and security to all. These initiatives need to be institutionalized keeping in view their sustainability and the rural

community needs to mobilize themselves to sustain these programmes effectively.

(d) Water Quality :

Due to the impact of different geogenic contaminants on water quality, an adequate provision of

alternate sources is highly warranted in the event of such contaminants affecting largely the ‘Water Security’. So the biggest issue here is the lack of coordination among various government

departments and other stakeholders.

(e) Convergence among different Stakeholders :

There is a great need for multi-sectoral convergence among the scopes of the different sectors to cover the use of water for drinking, irrigation and other conjunctive uses along with their

extensiveness and impacts. Considering the availability of water resources (both groundwater and surface sources) in Assam with normal rainfall, the multiple uses of water resources is not

yet practiced due to the lack of proper convergence among stakeholders. All implementing stakeholder draws their own plan of action for utilization of water resources. Few years back the

agricultural department wanted to go ahead to install one lakh shallow tube wells for irrigating

the agricultural field, without considering the probable future effects of over withdrawal leading to chemical contamination/leaching etc. However such attempt could have easily be avoided by a

system of water sharing through discussion with other stakeholders. In case of utilization of ground water for different purposes such irrigation, water supply etc. a common source (deep

tube well) may perhaps be a feasible option and this can happen only through proper

convergence to involve suitable water sharing formula.

So, an well designed and sustainable management action plan for an integrated water resource management (IWRM) for water resources is a priority that would consider both the aspects of

development and necessary preservation, as well as environmental perspective. In Assam, a State Based and multi-stakeholders oriented Water Task Force needs to be formed for initiating a

regulatory approach to monitor the Conservation and Protection of all water resources, including

the installation of any groundwater based water source.

Thus in the above back cloth, the following Issues may perhaps need due considaration : • The planning, development and management of water resources need to be governed by

encompassing all water resources based on the region / basin / watershed wise

information. The national perspective may perhaps not provide effective approach for a particular region, like the North Eastern region. Ensuring sustainability for the approach /

activities is also very important. • There should be enabling environment for convergent policies among the water users

sectors.

• Allocation of water for the purpose of basic livelihood and environmental upkeep must be prioritized, without any economic cap on it. Water allocation for private parties/vendors

may be treated as an economic good with all necessary regulation without any virtual license to pollute the water resources.

• There should be strict allocation for the water to be used for industrial purposes. • Adequate research among different forms of water resources, like surface water bodies

(river, spring, etc.), ground water, wetland etc. may be helpful for conservation of water

resources. In this connection, development of GIS mapping of water resources may perhaps be quite helpful for the necessary decision making process.

• The scope and a more conservative approach of Wetlands (Conservation and Management) Rules, 2010 of the Ministry of Environment and Forests and Central

Wetland Regulatory Authority and the role and responsibilities of the Central and State

Government, needs to specified with a clear direction for better management of the wetland and also to prevent any detrimental activities on the wetlands.

• The impact of different geogenic contaminants on water quality and their necessary redresses need to be prioritized.

• A Legal framework might be established in a more stringent way to prevent pollution (more importantly the anthropogenic ones) for all forms of water resources.

• All sources of pollution must have the adequate provision for treatment of effluents and

there must be strict compliance before release to the water resources, if need be. • One of the notable factors responsible for water scarcity is the dwindling forest cover as

proclaimed by different schools of thought. One school of thought describes that there is a substantial reduction in water retaining capacity in the areas along the Indo-Bhutan

border. These areas were well known for their thick forest cover, predominantly with Sal

trees, which contributed to enhance the water retaining capacity in the areas. But during the last few years, there was large scale deforestation and the Sal Wood trees have

vanished from the area. So the groundwater reserve in those areas gets exhausted more easily, as it flows down to the lower terrain areas downstream.

• Inter-basin water-related conflicts also need clear direction.in this region. For example, plans are in place to develop approx. 168 Nos of hydroelectric power plants along the

river Brahmaputra and its tributaries in Arunachal Pradesh. The dams would bring a

valuable income to Arunachal Pradesh, but at the same time would put at risk many traditional waterrelated livelihoods and other riparian regions downstream.

• So, it has become inevitable to have a Regional Water Authority ( but, not the Central Government as ‘Appropriate Government’ as proposed in the Natioanal Water Framework

Law ) on inter-Basin water resources with the involvement of all stakeholders to act as ac

regulatory authority on scientific source finding using hydrological survey and to ensure proper utilization of water resources and also to avoid the situation that arises out of

climate change leading, to water scarcity and other regional problems. Such Regional Water Authority should be formed with the representatives form the concerned State

Based Water Authorities within it’s jurisdiction. Moreover, the State based Water Authority should involve all Stakeholders on water front in the State.

• Adequate capacity building activities for all implementation stakeholders should be taken

up. • There should be multi-sectoral discussion among all to evolve a consensus on all relevant

issues of importance.

* Offline Contribution

Many thanks to all who contributed to this query!

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