INDIAN SOCIAL AND POLITICAL ENVIRONMENT REFLECTION-1

The Right to Water in India-perspective and challenges

Submitted to:

Prof Vandana Swami

Submitted By: Anirban Chandra(122011) Section B

Submitted On March 30th, 2013

Anirban 122011

INTRODUCTION The reading emphasizes water not only as the essential element to life but also a source of livelihood for all the marginal communities who depend directly on the water based resources which is under grave danger due to the development pressure connecting hydroelectric projects providing with power and energy to sustain the India growth story. We also have depletion of ground water resources, contamination of ground water due to industrial and mining activities (specially the mining waste). In response, the Indian government response is the water resource management with a national water policy but the policy is focused on commoditization of water and skewed towards the focus on urbanization putting the right to water issue in the backburner. LEARNING AND TAKEAWAYS FROM THE READING 1. Right or Need? The right to water and sanitation is a human right recognized internationally though it does not have the explicit constitutional protection in India 2. The clash of right to water and economic growth: the development target of 8-10% makes it seemingly dependent on energy supply(power).But with the deregulation of electricity sector in 2003,the growth has been unplanned and destructive(evident in MoEF clearance of large coal/gas/hydro based projects in ecologically sensitive areas).Though the hydro power projects are supposed to be green energy and to satisfy the peak hour demand, the power generated is going to only the industrial sectors and depriving the local communities of any benefits. Along with that water demand by conventional thermal power plants are already high leading to water shortage 3. Destruction of traditional water systems: our traditional water management system was equipped to deal with the problems without damaging the local environmental balance. 4. National water policy: primarily focused on water as economic good with a underlying pro-privatization push -recognizing water as a need not a right for citizens. 5. Privatization: Focused on the cost recovery, denial of rights for local communities KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM THE SOLUTION PROPOSED FOR FUTURE First. Framing of the water policy at the state level and challenge the conditions according to the state level conditions. Second. Water law-recognizing water as a human right. Third,

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Progressive water policy and participatory movement by the population. Fourth energy policy compatible with the right to water and moratorium of any big large thermal power projects5.bottom up approach from the local level (like gram sabha) ARGUMENTS AND OVERVIEW OF THE READING Though the authors rightly pointed out serious issues, some questions remains: 1. Authors argued about the high concentration of hydro projects and thermal power projects in certain regions but the reason of the concentration might be geographical because hydro projects need high terrain and contour to be successful (which will be available to only hilly areas in India) and thermal projects needs nearby raw materials and connectivity without which they would not be feasible, Authors did not address the issue. 2. The main bone of contention has been the damage done to local communities. And usage right of the project, but we cant ignore the fact that hydro projects, in the long term, does not harm the environment-All the issues are implementation and livelihood issues of local communities and environment but the merits of hydro power in the long run cant be ignored. 3. Authors did not mention the irrigation/flood-drought issues out of dams-India being a seasonal monsoon dependent nation-the threat of drought and flood would be imminent, the traditional water management system was not able to cope with the flood-drought issues. For that, dams are necessary and we have the success story of DVC (Damodarvalley-corporation) for irrigation and flood-drought. 4. Authors did not mention the alternate energy use-we need a substitute for energy source, if its not going to be hydro or thermal projects. For that the government should encourage the alternate energy sources (solar, wind, biomass)-as we cant deny the growth requirement and we need to have a balance between the growth and sustainability. 5. The main issue seems to be the implementation issue, probably instead of any moratorium, stringent policies and proper environment impact assessment (EIA) should be done, we have to ensure proper rehabilitation of local communities and need to make sure the local communities get all the benefits. We should cant ignore or kill an idea (a project with long term gain) because we are faltering on the implementation stage.

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