Time to update water governance

Drawing attention to issues in Bengaluru, Chhattisgarh, and Pune, the author highlights the need for accountability, institutional reforms, and collaborative efforts to address the evolving water crisis

This winter, as we enter a fresh year, I would like to take you back to a few important happenings that capture the water governance story of the nation to a large extent.

During a discussion on the conditions of the Pune rivers, a researcher talked about a term called “executive democracy.” She was highlighting the issue of pollution of lakes and other wetlands and explaining how, despite orders from the judiciary, including the Green Tribunal, the Executive is not doing its best to keep our water commons free from encroachment, pollution, and loss of biodiversity. This certainly calls for a larger debate on the ‘water governance’ models of the cities in particular and the country in general.

As our summers get harsher by the year and the poor in the city suffer more than others, our city administrators are always on their toes to provide water supply to the informal settlements in cities, and the challenge of over extraction of groundwater by the gated communities.

India, its cities, and its rural areas are supposed to be governed by the national water policy and related state policies and legislation. While the current water policy is dated and the new one is taking more than usual time to be finalised, it would be good to learn from the existing patterns of governance to be able to improve our systems. Let’s try to understand this from the following examples: two from cities and one from a rural area.

Bengaluru: Accountability

In September 2022, this south Indian city, also known as the IT techies’ paradise, saw devastating rains. However, elections took over the governance space, and the city could not get time to make any short-term corrective measures. Eight months later, on May 21, just a week after a new state government was elected to power in the state, a young girl, employed with the IT company Infosys, succumbed to death by getting stuck inside a hired car as heavy pre-monsoon showers suddenly entered the area. The newly elected Chief Minister of the state announced an ex-gratia compensation of 5 lakh rupees for this death that occurred due to a faulty water management system in the city. The Chief Minister directed the city government, Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), to take immediate measures to ensure that none of the 18 underpasses get waterlogged again. Such underpasses flood from the day they are constructed, here in Bengaluru and everywhere in the country. And the BBMP was in existence even before the Chief Minister was sworn in. What stopped them all these years from correcting the infrastructural fault lines?

It takes an extreme precipitation event or a death to wake up the authorities. Ironically, they wake up only to sleep again. People, busy with their daily struggles, forget. Why do systems forget? Fixing accountability is an integral component of water governance structures. Cash compensation for deaths due to system-made failures should not be mistaken for the system’s accountability.

Chhattisgarh: Institutional reform must

The same day when the Bengaluru techie died of excessive rainfall, far off in Chhattisgarh in the central highlands, which was reeling under extreme heatwave conditions, a government officer got a reservoir drained out of almost 21 lakh liters of water to recover his phone worth a lakh rupees. Ironically, he is a food inspector, having no connections whatsoever with the water department, but seems to have clout over the managers of the dam who helped him commit this crime against humanity.

The district collector of Kanker district, within which this reservoir falls, suspended this man and fined him 53,000 rupees, as reported. This comes to around 2.5 pesos per liter of water! However, the larger question of institutional accountability comes into play here too. There should have been some established norms to operate this reservoir, and the water department officials should be following them. Further, there needs to be a norm about the amount of fine and punishment.

Collaborative Maharashtra stakeholders

Down west, in Pune, another unique situation has developed that challenges the conventional water governance models of our nation. While pollution of our rivers and other wetlands by city-generated waste has been taken for granted and waste management plans are running at slow speeds, the media reported in May 2023 that the Maharashtra irrigation department has imposed a fine of `507 crores on the Pune Municipal Corporation for polluting city rivers from 2018 until July 2022. It’s based on a government order of 2016, as being reported, and opens a new chapter in the conflict between two major stakeholders of our rivers in cities. We have seen the National Green Tribunal or other courts impose such fines based on legal battles between conflicting user groups. This one is different and reflects the growing water crisis, as well as the growing understanding and sensitivity of the government departments to this crisis.

Way forward

All these examples are indicators of the drastically changing water crisis situation and growing conflicts between different stakeholders. These also call for an updated understanding of water governance among all these stakeholders. The latest water policy—a work in progress—should take into consideration such examples and suggest inclusive and accountable water governance structures for the country. Most importantly, the core principles of water management and non-negotiables, including mechanisms for establishing integrity, should be given top priority while drafting the policy for this.

Resolving conflicts, fostering cooperation frameworks between stakeholders, facilitating convergence between different departments and institutions, adapting to climate change, restoring water and forest commons, establishing rural-urban partnerships to protect watersheds that feed our rivers, fetching climate finance for helping vulnerable communities whose lives and livelihoods are directly impacted by climate change fuelled water crisis, promoting technologies that help in reducing water wastes and enhance efficiency in waste management, involving cross-sectoral expertise in water governance and most importantly integrating sustainable traditional practices and knowledge systems of local communities are just a few suggestions to begin with.

In his analysis of India’s water governance problems, the author calls for modernised modes of accountability, institutional changes, and cooperative solutions.