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National Water Policy: Managing demand,
maximising storage
Thursday January 03, 2013 05:52:12 PM,
Prashant Sood,
IANS
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New Delhi:
With India's per capita availability of water having reached what
are called "stress" levels, Inida's new national water policy
calls for strategies aimed at managing demand and improving
storage efficiency, particularly in agriculture, that accounts for
over 80 percent of water use.
The National Water Policy, for the first time, also speaks of the
challenge of climate change to water security and suggests
augmenting water storage in various forms as a mitigation
strategy.
"The new water policy has been prepared with a broad vision. It
has been prepared so that we can tackle the impending challenges
in the water sector over the next three-four decades," Water
Resources Minister Harish Rawat told IANS.
The National Water Policy 2012 was adopted by the National Water
Resources Council last week.
Rawat said the per capita availability of water had substantially
gone down from 5,177 cubic metres in 1951 to 1,545 cubic metres in
2011 and was projected to go further down to 1,341 cubic metres in
2025 and 1,140 cubic metres in 2050.
The minister said that boosting "live storage" was one of the ways
to ensure water security. Hydropower projects should be planned as
multi-purpose projects with provision of storage. He said present
storage capacity in the country was 253 billion cubic metres (bcm)
and will go up to 408 bcm in 2050 "only if all the projects under
construction and under consideration are completed".
He said studies have indicated that India would need around 450
bcm of storage capacity by 2050 to meet the requirements of
various sectors.
Ministry officials said the per capita water storage capacity in
India was about 209 cubic metres against that of the US at 2,192
cubic metres and Brazil 2,632 cubic metres. The corresponding
figure for China is 416 cubic metres.
They said it was difficult to increase the per capita availability
due to the growing population, urbanisation, rapid
industrialisation and economic development.
"The per capita demand has to be reduced so we do not go to
scarcity levels from stress levels," a ministry official told
IANS.
He said India was "a water stressed" country. Global benchmarks
indicated this if the availability fell below 1,700 cubic metres
per year. He said efficiency in the use of water, specially for
irrigation, will help in huge savings.
"Irrigation uses more than 80 percent of the usable water. Saving
water in irrigation is of paramount importance. Methods like
aligning cropping patterns with resource endowment and
micro-irrigation need to be encouraged. There is a lot of thrust
in the 12th (Five-Year) Plan on micro irrigation practices such as
drip and sprinkler irrigation," the official said.
He said that the new water policy talks of developing benchmarks
of efficiency in terms of water footprints and water auditing.
The new policy also suggests allocation and pricing on economic
principles after ensuring a minimum quantity of potable water for
essential health and hygiene of citizens and suggests creation of
a Water Regulatory Authority in each state to lay down tariffs.
The new policy says heavy underpricing of electricity leads to
wasteful use of both power and water.
It calls for a broad overarching national legal framework of
general principles for water and suggests creating a permanent
Water Disputes Tribunal at the centre to expeditiously resolve
disputes in an equitable manner.
It calls for mapping of acquifers and taking the river basin and
sub-basin as a unit for planning, developing and managing water
resources.
The official said the new water policy recommends giving statutory
powers to water user associations to collect and retain a portion
of water charges, manage the volumetric quantum of water allotted
to them and maintain the distribution system.
He said the policy also recommends managing water quality and
quantity in an integrated manner.
Unlike the last policy of 2002 that made no mention of the
rural-urban disparity in water supply, the new policy attempts to
bring equality on the issue.
(Prashant Sood can be contacted at prashant.s@ians.in)
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