Water reforms

The proposal mooted in the mid-term appraisal of the 10th Plan for linking the funding for large irrigation projects with water sector reforms, is important but not new.

Equally important are the suggestions for greater reliance on participatory irrigation management through water users' associations and periodical revisions in water tariffs.

For this, the Planning Commission has suggested""and with good reason""differential tariffs for high and low water consuming crops, linked with the ground-water status, and lowering of the subsidy on power to discourage over-drawing of ground water, especially in water-depleted areas.

These are critical reforms that need to be carried out immediately. A great deal of harm has already been done to the country's hydrological regime due to flawed, as also populist, water use and pricing policies.

As a result, despite being a renewable natural resource, water has become scarce enough to adversely impact economic development. Part of the increased demand for purposes like irrigation, hydel power generation, industrial use and domestic needs remains unmet today.

Even the glaciers in the Himalayas, especially in Himachal Pradesh, Uttaranchal, Nepal and Bhutan, are depleting rapidly. What has compounded the scarcity problem is the deteriorating quality of water due to rampant pollution of both surface and ground water, resulting in further restricting the availability of usable water.

Change can come about only with the realisation that water, as a resource, is one and indivisible. Rainfall, water in rivers and ponds, and groundwater are all part of a single large ecological system.

Over-exploitation of any of these sectors is bound ultimately to reflect also in the depletion of the other sectors. There is, therefore, the need for conjunctive use of surface and groundwater.

Proper pricing of water can, indeed, be a significant means of ensuring economical and efficient use of water. In fact, the National Water Policy, approved by Parliament many years ago, had succinctly stipulated that water rates should be such as to convey the scarcity value of the resource to users and to foster economy in water-use.

Moreover, the price of water should be adequate to cover the annual maintenance and operation costs of irrigation schemes, and a part of the fixed costs as well.

Significantly, it was adherence to this principle that made irrigation an important source of revenue for the government till Independence.

Since the post-Independence experience clearly spells out the state's inability to apply this well-founded principle, the best course is to encourage the formation of water users' bodies and allow them to fix and collect water charges.

Putting the onus of the maintenance and operation of projects on these bodies would automatically ensure realism in the fixation of water rates as well as water use quotas, keeping a balance between needs and availability.

At the macro level, developmental activities in the agricultural, industrial and other sectors need to be planned with due consideration to the constraints imposed by water availability.

Simultaneously, efforts need to be stepped up to conserve water by preventing wasteful run-off and even barring its exploitation beyond a certain depletion limit.