Former Prime Minister of India - Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee

Speech of Prime Minister Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee At the Fifth Meeting of the National Water Resources Council

I welcome you all to this fifth meeting of the National Water Resources Council, which meets after a gap of twenty months. We are meeting to discuss a very important agenda. Indeed, there is only a single item on the scheduled agenda — namely, adoption of the draft National Water Policy.

A revision of the 1987 policy is long overdue. I say so because, with each passing year, we in India are becoming aware of the increasing gravity of the problems associated with water. The issues concerning efficient and sustainable harnessing, distribution, pollution prevention, and usage of water have never been as critical in post-independence history as they are now.

Lakhs of villages in our country have become water-scarce or, worse still, no-source villages. Many towns and cities are facing acute shortage of drinking water and water for industrial use. Depletion of ground water resources, on which millions of rural families depend for their drinking water needs as well as irrigation, continues unabated. This is made worse by the growing pollution and inefficient use of surface water. Our culture and tradition enjoins upon us to treat our rivers as sacred. Yet, over the past few decades, more rivers are getting more polluted at more places than ever before. Scarcity of water is compounded by its unequal, irrational, and unjust distribution in both rural and urban communities.

Therefore, the situation is forcing us to recognize water security as an overriding national objective — both as an inseparable aspect of food security but also in its own independent right. While we prepare for the challenge ahead, we should critically re-examine the administrative framework and the policies we have actually implemented during the last 55 years for the water resources development.

Water requirement in the country is closely related to the population. A population of around 1.6 billion by 2050 would considerably increase the demand for drinking water, food production, non-food agricultural activities, industrial use, energy production, etc. This is likely to put the water availability under enormous stress. Further, the objectives set for improvement in the quality of life and preservation of ecology and environment would result in further increase of the projected per person use of water per year. This increased need for water stands in stark contrast to the fundamental truth that water resources are limited and annual replenishments are almost constant over a long time span.

We are, therefore, left with no alternative but to think radically, and come up with innovative and bold responses to the enormous challenge that our nation and our citizens are facing. What we need is an integrated, multi-disciplinary approach. An approach that covers not only technological aspects but also social, economic, legal, and environmental concerns.

I firmly believe that the difference between mismanagement and efficient management of water resources is going to play a crucial role in our fight against poverty and in our endeavor to ensure an orderly all-round development of our society. The balance between the water requirement and water availability can be struck only if utmost efficiency is introduced in all types of use of water.

The cornerstone of the new National Water Policy should be an explicit recognition that water is a National resource and access to safe, adequate, and affordable water is a basic need of every citizen. In particular, right to drinking water should be accorded a priority over every other alternative use.

The policy should also recognize that the community is the rightful custodian of water. Exclusive control by the government machinery, and the resultant mindset among the people that water management is the exclusive responsibility of the government, cannot help us to make the paradigm shift that to participative, essentially local management of water resources. Both the Centre and the State governments should, therefore, actively seek the involvement of the community at all levels — from decision-making to monitoring the implementation of decisions. Wherever feasible, public-private partnerships should be encouraged in such a manner that we can attract private investment in the development and management of water resources.

Nowhere is community control more needed than in the augmentation, management, and equitable use of groundwater resources. I would like the State Governments to actively encourage community action, wherever necessary with appropriate group incentives, to harvest rainwater in order to recharge groundwater resources. We also need to clearly understand that subsidies for power and diesel have been largely responsible for over-exploitation of ground water, leading to sharp lowering of the water table in many regions. In turn, this has led to increased use of energy for irrigation, and further expenditure on energy subsidies. There is also need, through policy measures, to promote the conjunctive use of ground and surface water.

Let this meeting of the Council send out a powerful message that “harnessing of every drop of rainwater” is a national priority. We should lay special emphasis on localized, decentralized harnessing of water resources, which is most cost-effective and which also lends itself to better community participation.

Our catchword should be: “Catch the catchment”. Wherever necessary, our farmers and rural communities should be encouraged to bund every field and bind every rivulet. This will prevent soil erosion and silting of the reservoirs. There is a suggestion that every village should earmark five percent of its area for creation of community water bodies, much like the community grazing grounds that still exist in many villages. It is a powerful idea whose time has come.

I am pleased to note that the draft policy emphasizes the role of Water Users’ Associations and Panchayati Raj Institutions in the operation, maintenance, and management of water resources, infrastructures, and facilities. Except for the provision of drinking water for all, there is a need to universalize the practice of user payment for all other uses of water on sound economic principles, which take account of its scarcity, and adverse effects of its pollution and overuse. The moneys so collected should be clearly earmarked by appropriate fiscal instruments for expansion, maintenance, and improvement of the water supply and pollution abatement infrastructure.

An issue that demands a critical look is the inefficient use of water in our agriculture and industry. Technologies and methods are available today whereby the agriculture sector could cut its water needs by ten to fifty percent, industries by forty to ninety percent and cities by thirty to thirty five percent without any sacrifice of economic output or quality of life.

In agriculture, the time has come to introduce a new parameter to assess our progress — namely, productivity of every unit of water used, much in the same way as we calculate productivity of every unit of investment. I am pleased to note that the draft policy has recognized the need to encourage water-efficient irrigation technologies such as drip and sprinkler irrigation.

Against a very large potential for drip and sprinkler irrigation, only a very small fraction has so far been realized. The subsidy scheme for such micro-irrigation systems has not been working too well, mainly due to corruption in its administration. We need to put in place alternative fiscal measures to significantly reduce the price of micro-irrigation systems to the farmer without direct, case-by-case subsidy.

Another aspect that I would like to emphasize is transparency in the implementation of water projects. The government spends huge sums on these projects. However, the process of incurring expenditures, and its relationship to intended benefits is often opaque. The supposed beneficiaries often do not have an opportunity to know the details of expenditure on these projects, or to relate them to the benefits that are supposed to follow. Therefore, the National Water Policy should start a new culture of public monitoring of expenditure and outcomes of water projects.

Water is the key natural resource for sustaining all life-forms. Considering the scarcity of fresh water, water should be conserved both in use and quality. The draft National Water Policy has rightly laid down the principle of “polluter pays” as the key to preventing pollution of water sources. While this is welcome, we should go a step further and make it clear that prevention of pollution and wastage of water is a National priority. Indeed, a national campaign needs to be launched to educate the people on stopping the wastage and pollution of water. For example, if the efficiency of usage of water in agriculture improves by a few percentage points, the availability of water for cities and industries will rise substantially.

In relation to harvesting of rain-water, conservation of local water sources, equitable and efficient allocations of irrigation water, prevention of pollution of water bodies, conservation of groundwater, and treatment of waste water, a number of different models have evolved in our country over the years, and now constitute the “best practice” in the field. These practices involve farmers, factories, community based organizations, NGOs, public-private partnerships, and government agencies. There is a need to make an inventory of such best practices, and launch a country-wide program for their replication throughout the country, during the 10th Five Year Plan. Some of these models involve economic incentives for conservation and pollution abatements. Some other models may involve mutual exchange of rights over water and other resources.

The working group, which we had decided to constitute in our last meeting, has deliberated at length in its two meetings on the issues that had eluded consensus till then. These are essentially inter-State issues. I believe that an institutional and legal framework in the form of River Basin Organizations is essential for adopting a holistic and integrated approach to the water resources management. This would provide the states with a forum to discuss the related issues of the conservation, pollution control, and development in the basin.

I would urge that, realizing the importance of integrated water resources development, the States should come forward themselves and set up these organizations, especially in the river basins falling within one state. Let me assure that the status of these organizations, even in the inter-state rivers, would be decided by the participating states themselves. The Central Government will play the role of a facilitator, where called for, and arbiter where necessary.

The Agenda for today’s discussions is before you. I would urge you all to view the recommendations before us from a broader national perspective. We need to adopt the new National Water Policy, if necessary after incorporating constructive suggestions that have come from non-governmental organizations. We should do so without any further delay and move ahead with its implementation for the benefit of our people.

Thank you.