There was a general discontent among participants across various states regarding National as well as respective States' water policies. It was emphasized that the new government should scrap the existing policy and go for new water policy based on regional dialogue with different stakeholders. The 16 states Jal Biradari Presidentes and representatives expressed their views on different aspects of water and suggested the following to be incorporated in the New Water Policy.
• Water policy and planning should be guided by an awareness of the role that water plays on earth. Water is an integral part of nature (i.e., the ecological system) sustaining it and being sustained by it. Limits on our draft on natural resources, particularly water, set by ecological imperatives and the health of planet earth (encapsulated in the expression ‘sustainability') must not be exceeded.
• Water is a finite resource. Unlike industrial and consumer goods, water cannot be ‘produced' in response to projections of ‘demand'. Reversing that approach, ‘demand' must be restrained and managed with reference to the finite availability. To some extent the ‘usable' component of ‘available' water resources can be augmented, but this- whether in relation to surface water or groundwater, and whatever the scale or the agency- must be done with due regard to the impacts and consequences of such activities.(it is of course necessary to minimize reductions in the availability of water through pollution and contamination; and to retrieve as much water for use from waste as possible.)
• Water has to be shared by humans with livestock, wildlife, aquatic life, nature in general, and future generations.
• Water ‘development and management has to be primarily local, decentralized and community based, but nested and integrated in a wider, multi-tiered network of institutions and organizations. (This brings in the idea of ‘basin planning', but the tendency towards centralization and gigantism needs to be guarded against.
• The first basic point is about water as a community resource. Water for life', i.e., safe drinking water (including a minimal allowance for cooking and washing), is a basic right and must be assured to all, in cities and in villages, in accordance with modest norms. Sanitation facilities must be assured in accordance with the UN's Millennium Development Goals.
• Water as a ‘social good' (water for municipal uses, firefighting, hospitals, public institutions) must be adequately provided for.
• In all categories of water-uses, economy and efficiency must be brought about, waste avoided, and multiple use of the same water ensured to the extent avoided, and multiple use of the same water ensured to the extent possible. The approach must be to meet the essential water needs and curtail the less essential or non-essential uses sharply, and restrain and manage the totality of demand within the availability to the extent possible, so that it does not get out of hand.
• Water ownership, command, control, and management should be left with community. This will entail change in the existing laws, regulations and state policies from centralized to decentralized planning and management.
• Regarding water management, River Basin and/or Watershed should be the basis and scale of water management. Also, land, water and forest should be managed together in an integrated manner to attain sustainable development and management of the water resources.
• The role played by women in relation to water in the household and in the field and their special difficulties need to be recognized. Giving women their rightful place in whatever water-governance structures and institutions are devised is of great importance. The fact that the adverse impacts of large projects, water markets and the processes of globalization tend to impinge with particular severity on women must be noted and appropriate correctives devised.
• The principle of full cost recovery' in pricing, which is an important part of the economic reform' prescriptions, will be applicable to water as commodity' but not to water for life. Principles for the proper pricing of water in all uses must be laid down and strictly followed. This will include full economic pricing for some uses (including penal pricing for use above a specified limit), reasonable pricing for other uses, subsidized pricing for the poor, and a modicum of free supplies to the very poor.
• Old/traditional systems should find place in the present land utilization, land policies, forest management system and water management policies in an integrated way.
• Conflicts relating to waters (rivers, aquifers) will need to be minimized, and principles and mechanisms for obviating them, or for resolving them when they arise, strengthened where they exist and introduced where they do not. Non-compliance with statutory or constitutional conflict-resolution provisions must not be accepted. The political difficulties of establishing appropriated organizations at the basin or sub-basin level for harmonious and holistic resource management need to be tackled.
• The increasing number of rural - urban conflict over water is a matter of concern. These can be resolved through formation of Stakeholder Forums (example, On Kavari issue MIDS, and Ahmedabad city VIKSAT). Urban population should feel their responsibility to contribute in water conservation, augmentation, and controlling pollution. This can be attained by creating awareness in domestic water saving, regulating water usage, changing groundwater laws, proper pricing, rooftop water harvesting system, etc. Also urban population should realise that water is scarce and they are equally responsible to conserve and harness water.
• One common point that was unanimously agreed was that National Water Policy should account for regional diversities. Also, state water policies should take cognizance of their regional differences in water resource availability and use.
• Surface and groundwater management should be sustainably managed based on rainfall and groundwater recharge. Water balance studies conducted at various levels should provide information and knowledge to people guiding them in sustainable use of the resource. Use only annual recharge component to check the falling groundwater table i.e., we should use the interest not the principal capital.
• The policy of state government's to bring foreign funding (World Bank, Asian Development Bank) to solve urban water problems need rethinking. As the utilization and benefits derived of the funds is questioned.
• The reckless exploitation of groundwater currently leading to the rapid depletion of aquifers in many places must be quickly brought under a regime of regulation. This may entail changes in the law relating to ownership rights over groundwater, enactment of new State-level laws for regulating the extraction and use of groundwater, establishment of regulatory bodies, rationalization of power tariffs, and so on. Groundwater should be declared as ‘community resource' and GW aquifer management committees to be evolved by water literacy movement. There should be an integrated effort of the community as well as the law to control and regulate withdrawal and also make special efforts to augment groundwater by initiating recharge movement across the country.
• Water Quality – Many rivers and streams are continuously becoming unfit for use due to pollution from untreated industrial refuse and household sewage. Water sources and systems must be protected from pollution and contamination, and those already affected must be retrieved. This will call for a massive effort in executing the existing laws more strictly and make the Pollution Control Board in each state accountable for pollution. The existing laws should be implemented and stringent measures are taken to make the polluters to pay so to curb further surface and groundwater pollution. In large groundwater depleted areas the existing water quality needs improvement through ground water recharge.
• Groundwater market: We need to be wary of water markets. They can perform some useful functions, but must be under the watchful eyes of the state and civil society from the point of view of protecting the natural environment and the resource itself, and ensuring equity.
• We need also to be wary of the emerging concept of ‘virtual water trade'. It may serve the limited purpose of sounding a caution regarding the water content of certain crops, but may also be insidiously used to persuade developing countries to meet their food needs through imports in preference to domestic productions.
• Subsidized electricity and diesel has led to increasing budget deficits. Laws should be made to ensure that only the needy get these subsidies and prevent any further exploitation of groundwater.
• Central Groundwater Board and State Groundwater Board should conduct enough research to identify the extent of groundwater recharge under different hydro-geological conditions and share the information with different agencies in a meaningful manner to facilitate groundwater recharge movement across the country.
• Such supply-side augmentation as is found necessary must be undertaken with due regard to sustainability, equity and social justice. Primacy must be given to extensive community-led local water-harvesting and watershed development activities (wherever feasible) with due regard to hydrological and environmental aspects.
• Large projects for the storage or diversion of river waters or for long-distance water transfers must be treated as projects of the last resort', i.e., undertaken only in those cases where they are the unique or the best option, after a stringent independent evaluation with reference to total costs and benefits (financial, economic, social, human, environmental), and with the fullest participation of the people likely to be affected. (Certain reforms in this context, such as a Freedom of Information act, an overhaul of the Land Acquisition Act, and so on. In particular, the National Rehabilitation Policy needs to be drastically revised.) Small is not necessarily beautiful, but ‘big' is problem-ridden and must be undertaken with great care. Big centralized projects and long-distance water transfers (from big reservoirs and through canals and links') may be unavoidable in some cases, but they must be undertaken as projects of the last resort after a consideration of all possibilities and options, and after a stringent scrutiny of the proposed project to ensure that in itself it is a good proposition and that it is the only option or the best of available options. (The criteria for selection must include among others the principles of ‘least displacement or disturbance of communities' and minimum environmental impact'.)
• Projects that have been on going for a long time should be put through a stringent review. Some should be accelerated, some re-phased, and some terminated.
• Inefficiency in the surface water projects constructed since independence is well known. Further, the potential created through these projects is not utilised properly and the repair and maintenance of these structures is also a problem. The idea of Water Users' Association (WUAs) has emerged as a solution to cater to these inefficiencies and improper maintenance. But these associations should not be imposed from top by the state. Rather they should be need based and thus emerge on their own through some facilitation. The role of the State is to facilitate the emergence of these WUAs through educating, creating awareness, capacity building of the beneficiaries and providing a conducive environment.
• The Participatory Irrigation Management (PIM) approach, i.e., the transfer of the management of an appropriate part of the system to farmers' associations, is a limited but useful reform. It must be introduced in all existing (Major and Medium) Projects, and built into new projects ab initio. It may entail capacity building of WAU members and few years support in management and maintenance of system.
• The issue of flood is not understood in the right perspective. Rather than understanding the root cause of the problem, people are passing the responsibility to non-real causes.Ways of coping with floods and minimizing damage and loss must be worked out for all flood-prone areas, and real-time information systems and warning mechanisms established. Present approach of controlling floods through damming and construction of embankments has failed to mitigate floods. Lessons should be learned from community coping strategies and adaptations and policies need modification accordingly.
• The need for enacting a governing, over-arching national water law integrating all laws at the Central or State levels (including the new ones that are needed) relating to or having a bearing on water must be seriously considered.
• Activities or ‘projects' in relation to ‘water as commodity', say, for irrigation or industrial use, by whatever agency undertaken, should not be allowed to jeopardize or threaten any group's ‘water for life' (including access to it).
• Role of the State: In relation to water, the state has certain roles: seeing that the fundamental right to water is not denied, regulating the draft on the resource, ensuring the protection of the resource, promoting economy in resource use and conservation, resolving conflicts or facilitating resolution, intervening to correct inequity or injustice, entering into treaties or understandings with other countries, and so on. In playing these roles, the state should take care to facilitate and not hinder the role of the community. There has to be a constructive, cooperative relationship between the state and civil society. (Where large physical works become necessary, the state may have to undertake them.
• Traditional systems and practices of water conservation and management that have fallen into decline or disuse, and the related institutions, need to be re-activated with such modifications and improvements as may be necessary. Customary law needs to be given due recognition and respect, and a constructive and harmonious relationship established between it and formal law.
• In allowing the private corporate sector to play a role in relation to water supply (or ‘development') care must be taken not to jeopardize water sources or the community's access to them; or put the ecological system at risk; or impair social justice or deprive any individuals or groups of their fundamental right to water; or compromise national control over the country's natural resources. (Similar remarks apply mutatis mutandis to the exploitation of groundwater by private individuals or institutions or corporate bodies.) In such cases, the state must see itself as the guardian of the natural resources of the country as also of the vital interests and rights of the community.
• Privatisation of surface water: The present direction of privatisation is not desirable. Rather, transferring the ownership, control and management of water to community is a better option. The state should facilitate and see that the ownership of water is transferred to the community. Private sector be allowed participation only in water services that too in case of state failure.
• The doctrine “Define property rights in water and allow trading” (part of the prevailing economic philosophy) is seriously flawed. There can be use rights but not property rights in relation to water. Use rights can be made tradable only to a limited extent.
• Mining, quarrying and other anti environmental and anti water activities should be regulated immediately. Indiscriminate mining should be stopped (case of Aravali in Rajasthan).