M A I N   N E W S

Panel: Shift water to Concurrent List
Vibha Sharma
Tribune News Service

Panel recommendations Ashok Chawla Panel on Scarce Water Resources has said there was an urgent need to bring a comprehensive national legislation on water, which could be either done through bringing water under the Concurrent List and then framing the appropriate legislation or by obtaining consensus from a majority of the states Views against n States believe that placing water in Concurrent List would weaken their authority over the natural resource as at present only they can enact laws on the subject. n Many experts also believe that taking away water from State List would be retrograde step, n While any move to shift the subject will face serious political difficulty because there will be stout opposition from states

New Delhi, August 29
A government-appointed committee to check exploitation and scarcity of water has recommended the precious natural resource to be placed under Concurrent List - a proposal, if accepted, may see vehement opposition from states like Punjab, where water resources are tapped to its maximum to fulfil agriculture needs.

Minister of state of Water Resources Vincent Pala told Parliament today that the Ashok Chawla Panel on Scarce Water Resources -the Committee on Allocation of Natural Resources (CANR)- said there was an urgent need to bring a comprehensive national legislation on water, which could be either done through bringing water under the Concurrent List and then framing the appropriate legislation or by obtaining consensus from a majority of the states that such a “framework law” is necessary and desirable as a Union enactment.

The recommendations have been referred to a GoM.

Bringing water under Union List was also discussed in a Planning Commission meet to formulate the 12th Plan, where it was suggested that the country’s water law should be on the lines of the European Union where water is under one directive.

States, however, believe that placing water in Concurrent List would weaken their authority over the natural resource as at present only they can enact laws on the subject.

Many experts also believe that taking away water from State List would be retrograde step, especially when the general trend was moving toward decentralisation. Since water has always been considered a community resource, they feel it should be left under the discretion of the community.

While any move to shift the subject will face serious political difficulty because there will be stout opposition from states, it is also a fact that in view of haphazard exploitation of the precious natural resource the country needs to address the water stress situation through some effective legislation.

Meanwhile, the panel said legal options in this regard need to be examined by the Ministry. “The national legislation should clarify a common position on a number of issues, for example the need to consider all water resources as a conjunctive, unified whole; water as a common property resource; principles of allocations and pricing and so on. The framework legislation should recognise that pollution also leads to conjunctive use of water, which makes the resource unusable for other purposes,” it said

The Committee also recommended amending the River Boards’ Act, 1956 and including groundwater in its ambit, while assigning the River Boards Act (RBA) a managerial role in management of water resources. Other proposals include aquifer level mapping, along with hydro-geological studies, and pilot projects in different settings to address the problems of groundwater management urgently. Each of these pilots should cover an area of 5,000 to 10,000 hectares or boundaries of an aquifer, whichever is less, it said.