A sombre appraisal of water resources

"The Hindu" - Hindi Translation

Contributed By: Mr. Prem Kumar, Basic IAS Academy
THE HINDU: Hindi Translation
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A sombre appraisal of water resources

T.N. Narasimhan and V.K. Gaur

In a mid-term review, the Planning Commission
calls for a holistic approach to water management,
based on the hydrologic cycle in place of the silos
into which the resource has been divided.
1. In the Planning Commission s 11th mid-term
appraisal report, Chapter 21 is devoted to Water
Resources. Recognising that the problems in this area
appear more serious than originally assessed, the appraisal
calls for a holistic approach based on the science of the
hydrologic cycle, to supplant the many different
administrative compartments into which water
management is currently divided. The salient findings of
the report include the unsustainable depletion of
groundwater caused by a progressive shift over the past
decades from the use of surface water to more
conveniently accessible groundwater; poor project
formulation coupled with shortfalls in the Central
government s support to enhance realisation of the
irrigation potential; and the need for cautionary diligence
before embarking on the ambitious project to interlink
rivers. In conclusion, the report urges the implementation
of the widely spelt remedial measures to protect water
quantity and quality. It also recommends that rain-
harvesting be enhanced, artificial recharge structures
energised, water-use efficiency improved, and treatment
and reclamation of urban waste water bettered.
2.As a planning document, the report aptly focusses
on how existing water-use methods can be improved and
enhanced through monetary and administrative reforms.
The report defers unitary treatment of the hydrological
cycle to the 12th Five-Year Plan. Even so, it is pertinent
to examine what is involved in taking a holistic hydrologic-
cycle view of the issue.
3. Factor of uncertainty
4.Perhaps the starting point is to recognise that the
water over India is a finite, limited resource with uncertain
annual variability. As such, it is to be monitored and
managed on various spatial and temporal scales. Thus,
the overall task is fundamentally resource-limited. In
other words, the nature of the resource is no more an
externality. Traditional practices of using the most
convenient source available were policy-limited in the
sense that when water was assumed to be freely available,
policy would encourage the use of the most convenient
Courtesy : - The Hindu 9 October , 2010
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source. Given this perception, what needs to be done is
to effect an orderly transition from a policy-limited mind-
set to one of resource-limited mind-set. This perspective
provides a context to examine what a holistic view of
the hydrologic cycle entails.
5.Given a watershed or a river basin of appropriate
scale of interest, a water budget allowing for evapotranspiration
and environmental flows, limits utilisable
water to about 15 per cent of the total annual precipitation.
This includes surface water and groundwater, including
artificial recharge and rain-harvesting. Since surface
water and groundwater are essentially components of
the same resource, it would appear prudent not to separate
them any longer. This notion is already central to the oft-
declared conjunctive strategy of water management.
Within the constraint of this water availability, we have to
fit in all the extant water use and distribution structures
public, private, and cooperative to optimise its use
among the stake-holders. Deceptively simple in logic, this
is a daunting, formidable challenge that confronts all
segments of India s society, from the lay person to state
functionaries and learned academies. The quality of their
individual and collective responses to this fundamental
issue will determine the quality of adaptation to the
scenarios of severe scarcity that are unfolding.
6.In order to improve the chances of a transition
happening from the silos to the hydrologic-cycle
perspective, informed debates involving earth scientists
and engineers are essential. They should present
knowledge bases for decision options, among social
scientists and administrators who formulate policies, and
among citizens in general, who by the dint of intuitive
visualisation and experience of the impact of these policies,
may contribute wisdom. Such wide-ranging discourses
are indispensable to define the collective and
differentiated responsibilities of the various segments of
society, in a common bid to conserve and safeguard the
integrity of a resource that is vital for human survival.
Yet, the Planning Commission s report devotes attention
primarily to administrative and financial reforms, which
by themselves will hardly help change the status quo.
Can the country wait until the next Plan to consider the
imperatives of a unitary hydrological cycle to guide its
course?
7. National water policy
8.Indeed, one may argue that the time to act is
now, especially in view of the Water Mission statement
issued by the Prime Minister s Climate Council in May
2010. That statement envisages a national water policy
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being put in place by 2013. Should not that goal be
coordinated with the Planning Commission s plans for the
immediate future?
9.It is also relevant to consider the role of the
Central government in the light of a unitary hydrological
cycle. The Commission s report accepts the extant policy
of water being a State subject, continuing in perpetuity.
This implicitly relegates the Centre s role to merely
providing monetary incentives for growth. However, based
on developments relating to water policy in the European
Union and other countries, one may visualise that the
Centre has a far more important role to play in providing
a heavy philosophical anchor that will give character to a
national water policy as envisaged in the Water Mission.
Elsewhere, we have emphasised the high desirability of a
Constitutional mandate on water that would re-examine
existing laws and policy to creatively respond to the new
knowledge of water science that has been gained since
their initial formulation.
10. Earth-related knowledge
11. So, it would be disheartening if India chooses to
defer action in grappling with the complex task of water
management that demands participation by the various
segments of its diverse society. At an infrastructure level,
the time is now to build institutions and training facilities
to monitor complex earth systems, disseminate information
on a real-time basis, and equally important, carry out
research on understanding, and adapting to, these systems
to delineate policy options that may become the basis for
future legislative and regulatory acts. There are serious
concerns that earth-related knowledge is lagging behind
the physical and biological sciences in India.
12. India s vision for food security and economic
security will be in jeopardy without the availability of
stabilised water supplies over the coming years. For
India s gifted and the bright, the most challenging future
lies in advancing knowledge and understanding of the
complex web of earth resource systems, water, land and
the biological habitat through which matter and energy
flow incessantly to restore equilibrium, and in the process,
fashion the environment in which everyone lives and
breathes. The task is formidable, but this is a challenge
that India shares with many other countries. There are
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opportunities for creative thinking and breakthroughs that
may enable India to provide world leadership. Much will
depend on how the country s leadership, and those who
help fashion policies, choose to act.
13. ( T.N. Narasimhan is Emeritus Professor in
the Department of Materials Science and Engineering,
and the Department of Environmental Science, Policy
and Management, University of California at Berkeley
(tnnarasimhan@LBL.gov). Vinod K. Gaur is with the
Indian Institute of Astrophysics and the CSIR Centre for
Mathematical Modelling and Computer Simulation,
Bangalore (gaur@cmmacs.ernet.in).
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