Soon, only one tribunal to resolve all river disputes

NEW DELHI: The government on Tuesday introduced a bill in Lok Sabha, seeking to speed up the inter-state river water dispute resolution process by setting up a single permanent tribunal whose order will be final and binding on the states.

Instead of having multiple tribunals under existing law, the bill makes a provision of a single permanent tribunal with multiple benches. The tribunal will have a fixed time period to resolve the dispute, unlike the existing ones.

Once the proposed legislation is enacted, the Inter-State River Water Disputes Tribunal will subsume all the existing tribunals. The bill was introduced in the backdrop of lingering disputes over river water sharing among many states.



The Inter-State River Water Disputes (Amendment) Bill, 2017, which was introduced by water resources minister Uma Bharti in the LS, also proposes to introduce a mechanism to resolve the water dispute amicably by negotiations through a 'dispute resolution committee' (DRC) before such disputes are referred to the tribunal.

BJD member Bhartruhari Mahtab said, "Since water is a state subject, I would also ask the government whether it has consulted all the 29 states before drafting it". Bharti, however, said the Centre was very much within its rights to introduce such a bill under Article 262 of the Constitution.