President Pranab Mukherjee pitches for stricter regulation to conserve water

NEW DELHI: Amid prediction of acute water shortage in the country by 2050 due to limited potential of ‘utilizable’ quantity of this resource, President Pranab Mukherjee on Monday called for a broad over-arching “national legal framework” to deal with the situation and appealed the users to work for cutting down wastage.

Mukherjee also pitched for “disincentives” and “stricter regulation” mechanism to deal with inefficient water consumption in the country.

He was speaking after inaugurating the second ‘India Water Forum’ (IWF), which will in the next two days try to find out ways and means to deal with the impending crisis.

Noting how the per capital availability of water has consistently been reducing due to population expansion, rapid urbanization and developmental needs, the President emphasized that the pricing mechanism for using water has to act as “an incentive for saving and disincentive for wastage”.

The IWF is being organized by The Energy and Resources Institute ( TERI) in association with different central ministries, including ministry of water resources, and World Bank.

Reminding the participants the “real” danger of climate change which will severely affect water resources in the country, Mukherjee said, “Usable water is a scarce commodity. The pricing mechanism has to act as an incentive for saving and disincentive for wastage. The role of water users associations has to be strengthened by giving them adequate powers for collection of water charges and management of water distribution system”.

Ruing that the current legal framework pertaining to water in India is non-uniform and inadequate to deal with the complex water situation, the President said, “A broad over-arching national legal framework of general principles on water could pave the way for essential legislation on water governance in the country”.

Speaking on various solutions based on 3 R - reduce, recycle and reuse - strategy for sustainable use of water resources, he also pitched for popularizing rain water harvesting by dovetailing existing rural development schemes like MNREGA.

The TERI director general and chairman of the key UN body, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change ( IPCC), R K Pachauri too called for an urgent action to deal with the situation and emphasized on “water use efficiency” as one of the most promising approaches for ensuing water security.

Sharing findings of the IPCC, he said the UN body too had projected that the per capital availability of water in India would be around two-thirds of the current level by the middle of the century. “Hence, a large part of India and the population of the country would be characterized by a situation of water stress,” said Pachauri.

Idea of the IWF is to explore vast opportunities in developing technically viable and economically feasible solutions for governance and management of water resources. Experts from different countries, including Israel, are participating in this event.