National Water Policy (NWP) , 2002, Union Ministry of Water

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The Union Ministry of Water Resources has undertaken a review and revision of the National Water Policy (NWP) , 2002. Some points regarding to that are mentioned below as the recommendations given in an editorial of The Hindu:

  • There is a gross mismanagement of water in India as evidenced below:
    • Intermittent and unreliable water supply in urban areas
    • Rivers turned into sewers or poison
    • Water related conflicts between uses, sectors, areas and states
    • Irrigation system in disarray
    • Depletion of aquifers in many parts of the country
    • Inefficiency and waste in every kind of water use
    • Environmental impacts of big water-resource projects
  • Hence there is need for a radical reform of water policy
  • Need to adopt a stringent restraint on the growth of demand for water
  • On the supply side the primacy will have to shift from large, centralized, capital-intensive ‘water resource development’ (WRD) projects with big dams and reservoirs and canal systems, to small, decentralised, local, community-led, water-harvesting and watershed-development programmes, with the big projects being regarded as projects of the last resort.
  • Multiple perspectives on water
    • Rights perspective
    • Social justice/equity perspective
    • Women՚s perspective
    • Community perspective
    • State perspective
    • Engineering perspective
    • Citizen/water-user perspective
    • Environmental perspective etc