Thursday 8 January 2015

पश्चिम घाट परिस्थितीकी तज्ञ गटाच्या अहवालाबद्दलचा ठराव



लोकाभिमुख पाणी धोरण संघर्ष मंचाने पश्चिम घाट परिस्थितीकी तज्ञ गट (WGEEP)  अहवाल (गाडगीळ कमिटी अहवाल) तसेच त्या नंतर श्री कस्तुरीरंगन यांच्या अध्यक्षतेखाली नेमल्या गेलेल्या High level working group on western Ghats (HLWG) यांच्या अहवालावर चर्चा करण्यासाठी २ मे २०१३ रोजी पुण्यामध्ये एका बैठकीचे आयोजन केले  होते. ह्या बैठकीमध्ये ह्या दोन्ही अहवालांमध्ये काय म्हंटले आहे ह्यावर मांडणी आणि त्यानंतर चर्चा झाली. बैठकीच्या शेवटी मंचाने आपली भूमिका मांडणारा जो ठराव संमत केला तो ह्याठिकाणी दिला आहे.


डॉ. माधव गाडगीळ समितीने सरकारला सादर केलेल्या पश्चिम घाटाच्या पर्यावरण रक्षणासंदर्भातील अहवालावर तातडीने जनसुनवाईची प्रक्रिया सुरू करण्यासाठी आणि अंतिम ठोस आराखडा राबविण्यासाठी केंद्र सरकारने हा अहवाल निःसंदिग्ध स्वरुपात तातडीने स्वीकारावा. जनसहभागातून अहवालाला आणि धोरण राबविणार्‍याला आवश्यक पक्केपणा आणण्याची प्रक्रिया अहवाल सिकारल्यानंतर लगेचच सुरू करावी.

डॉ. माधव गाडगीळ अहवालात स्वतःला पाहिजे तसे बदल करण्याच्या वाईट उद्देशाने केंद्र सरकारने कस्तुरीरंगन समिती नियुक्त केली. या समितीने जनतेची आणि पर्यावरणाची हानी होण्याला वाट मोकळी करण्याच्या पद्धतीने शिफारशी केल्या आहेत. हा नवा अहवाल स्थानिक जनतेशी संवाद साधून तयार करण्याचे औचित्य सुद्धा या समितीने दाखवले नाही. आणि परस्पर पद्धतीने डॉ. माधव गाडगीळ समितीने जनतेशी वैज्ञानिक संवाद साधून केलेल्या अहवालाला छेद देण्याचा प्रयत्न केला आहे. त्यामुळे हा कस्तुरीरंगन समितीचा अहवाल केंद्र सरकारने तातडीने फेटाळला पाहिजे.

केरळ मधील अथ्रापल्ली आणि कर्नाटक मधील गुंडीया या प्रकल्पांच्या बांधकामाला परवानगी देऊ नये अशी शिफारस डॉ. माधव गाडगीळ समितीने केली होती. कारण ही समिती अशा निष्कर्षाला आली की हे प्रकल्प पश्चिम घाटाच्या संवेदनक्षम पर्यावरणाला घातक ठरणारे आहेत. कस्तुरीरंगन समितीने हे दोन्ही प्रकल्प होण्याची वाट मिकली केली आहे ही गंभीर बाब आहे. याबाबतीत डॉ. माधव गाडगीळ समितीची शिफारसच योग्य आणि जनहिताची आहे त्यामुळे या शिफारशी नुसार या दोन्ही प्रकल्पांना परवानगी देऊ नये. ते रद्द करावेत.

डॉ. माधव गाडगीळ समितीच्या अहवालाविषयी अत्यंत भयंकर गैरसमज पसरविण्याचा प्रयत्न महाराष्ट्र सरकार आणि अनेक राजकारण्यांनी चालवला आहे. महाराष्ट्रातील दुष्काळ प्रवण भागातील दुष्काळाचे निर्मुलन करण्यासाठी जे सिंचन प्रकल्प बांधकाम होऊन तयार आहेत आणि बंधकामाधीन आहेत त्यांच्या अंमलबजावणीत अडथळा येईल असे काहीही डॉ. माधव गाडगीळ अहवालात नाही. औद्योगिक विकास झाला पाहिजे पण तो आरोग्याला आणि पर्यावरणाला घातक असता कामा नये असेच गाडगीळ समितीचे म्हणणे आहे. उलट सरकारने केलेल्या पर्यावरण संरक्षण कायद्याची काटेकोर अंमलबजावणी करण्याची शिफारस समितीने केली आहे, हे मुद्दाम ठासून सांगण्याची गरज आहे.

डॉ. माधव गाडगीळ समितीचा अहवाल संपूर्णपाने स्वीकारून त्याची अंमलबजावणी सुरू करावी. तो स्थानिक भाषेत भाषांतरित करून त्याचा प्रसार करावा. कस्तुरीरंगन समितीचा अहवाल लोकशाही विरोधी आणि जनता व पर्यावरण यांना घातक असल्यामुळे फेटाळला पाहिजे. यासाठी विविध लोकशाही मार्गांनी जनहालचाल, जनआंदोलन करण्याचा निर्धार या ठरावाद्वारे आम्ही करत आहोत.

लोकाभिमुख पाणी धोरण संघर्ष मंच

Comments on the Draft Inter-State River Basin Management Bill, 2012

People and environments are missing

The seven principles that are supposed to govern the bill (a) Participation; b) co-operation; c) equitable and sustainable utilization of water; d) conjunctive management of water; e) integrated management; f) water is a common pool state owned resource to ensure food security, support livelihoods, sustainable and equitable use; g) demand management by efficient use of water to avoid wastage) as stated in the proposed bill would have been laudable and deserving of appreciation; however none of them speak about the people in the concerned river basin and do not take explicit account of environmental needs and this fact vitiates their meaning and renders them inoperative and unacceptable. For example participation is in the context of basin states to develop, manage and regulate interstate waters; or co-operation is referred to in the context of national interest and for mutual benefits to the states or conjunctive use or integrated management or other principles, but nowhere do the needs and requirements of fulfilling the needs of the people and the flora fauna of the concerned river basins acquire central place. In fact, underlying the draft is an old-school governance attitude that does not sit well with the modern multi-stakeholder bottoms up approach that is essential for good governance. 

No norms for water sharing and distribution, within as well as across states
Similarly, the bill does not tackle the most contentious issue of how to share the waters between and within states. The river basin master plan could have become a powerful tool to lay out norms and criteria for sharing of inter-state waters, and specifying participative and bottom up processes of governance to develop, implement and monitor that plan. By not doing this the bill reduces the master plan to an ineffective wish list. Moreover, it completely ignores the various  basin level institutions that the individual states have already put up and the existing arrangements. It could be well argued that the companion water sharing policy note would supplement the bill, but that policy itself needs to be grounded within this bill by providing it with the necessary norms and institutional structures.
An associated weakness is that it does not even lay out any criteria for equitable sharing of water and  participative and bottom up processes of governance to develop, implement and monitor such sharing arrangements within the basin either. Because the principles and criteria for water priorities and allocations of different users are clearly laid out, all the verbal commitments to equity, sustainability, ensuring food security elsewhere in the bill are rendered ineffective and become lipservice. 

Mishandles centre-state balances and inter-state matters
The bill vests the power of demarcating and establishing a River basin authority with the Central government and it can do this with a unilateral central notification. This sweeping provision eliminates the role of the states in what is otherwise a state subject.
Moreover, as pointed out earlier, the Bill does not say anything on how or whether existing river basin corporations already formed within different states for inter-state rivers would be integrated within the proposed legal framework. At present there are several tribunals and awards on different interstate rivers but the proposed bill does not take any cognizance of these existing water sharing arrangements. Would the proposed RBAs could be preparing River basin plans ab novo or on the basis of the current, often non sustainable and inequitable, water allocations? None of this is clear. By allowing for participation of states in the Governing Council and the executive board, the bill sanguinely hopes for consensus  on a single river basin master plan that will also be implemented. It is unlikely that co-basin states would be able to evolve a consensus on a river basin master plan in this manner. 

Weak in its commitment to principles
At the root of this is a basic flaw that runs through the bill. While it is liberal in enunciating, using and referring to laudable principles, there it very little commitment to making them work and providing them with legal backing so that they would have the necessary teeth. It does not create any legal bindings through its use of these principles. For example equity and sustainability are mentioned as principles, but there is no attempt to provide a legal definition of what they mean within the act, nor are there any specific criteria laid out for their assessment. On top of this is the timidity to switch to recommendatory phrases instead of legal bindings. For example, conjunctive management of surface and ground water is a stated principle, but it is only recommendatory in nature and so is integrated management, and in both cases the states are to “make their best efforts“  to do so. This is bad law as well as bad policy.
It is sad to see such an important bill so badly drafted. As such the present draft is entirely unacceptable to us and will need to be suitably redrafted in its entirety by bringing the people who occupy them and the ecosystems that comprise them as central to the objectives as well as the means of achieving those objectives, taking note of the ground situation in respect of inter-state matters, and with a firm commitment to create legal binding to the principles that it enunciates and recommends. We demand that the draft be thrown out in its entirety and an alternative draft prepared allowing wider consultation allowing sufficient time to evolve consensus and ensure commitment to core principles in terms of legal bindings. We would emphasise that a bad draft that hurriedly tries to address the legal gap the bill tries to fill is worse than letting the gap lie as it is.


Lokabhimukh Pani Dhoran Sangharsha Manch
 





Comments on Draft National Policy Guidelines on Water Sharing/Distribution among States (2013)

It is argued that since neither the river board’s act nor the river disputes act of 1956 say anything about water sharing/distribution such a policy is needed. It is only recommendatory in nature.
The document defines several concepts in water sharing, details out the principles for water sharing and the guidelines for what it terms as equitable sharing of waters and finally outlines the mechanism for monitoring, administration and conflict resolution.  Without going into a clause by clause analysis of the document, here we would like to state some of our broad concerns around what gets conveyed as the essence of the draft policy guidelines.


Its broad objective as laid out in the document states the following
 “Developing the waters of inter-State rivers for the betterment of the population of the co-basin States/Union Territories such that developments are not detrimental to the interests of one another and are guided by national perspective”-The overarching concern is the national perspective and a very broad notion of what comprises betterment of the population. There is no mention of either sustainability or equity in explicit terms either here or in the document elsewhere. The question of water for environmental flows is thus completely sidelined, just as the equity issue is.

In its principles it lays emphasis on sharing of interstate waters through a quantification of water of the basin. While this could be seen as a positive step, it remains non committal on whether the entire quantities would be shared or certain specified quantities could be shared.  The principles outlined include concepts such as equitable apportionment, right of water use, autonomy for the states to allocate their share of the water to the different uses within the state, import and export of water, long distance water sharing etc.
Autonomy of the state in deciding allocations for particular uses is welcome, but it needs to be within a legal framework of priorities set at the national and state level.  These priorities have to include the right to basic water for all. 

A reading of the principles of import export of water and long distance water transfers leaves us with an impression that the draft policy guidelines are mainly about creating a favourable environment for the broader project of inter-linking of rivers.  

The policy guidelines explicitly state that existing uses and existing inter-state arrangements would be protected and accommodated. While the concern to recognize existing uses and sharing arrangements is welcome, it will reassert the current inequities and may also close possibilities of opening up spaces for more equitable sharing of waters and allocation for different uses. 

The most important section is one that provides guidelines for equitable sharing of waters and this includes physical features such as drainage area in a state, temperature, and vegetative cover etc, current requirements of water in the co-basin states, practicability of using the water share demanded and availability of alternative sources for supplementing the water demanded.  

None of these guidelines talk about either people living in the basins or the environments. The assessment of requirements of the water within a basin is based on the current uses and not on what ought to be the uses keeping in mind the sustainable use of the resource and the equitable sharing of water.  

Lokabhimukh Pani dhoran sangharsh manch believes that setting water priorities for the different uses of water should be based on the principles of sequentiality and proportionality. So for example sequential principle would mean that basic domestic water requirements (water for drinking and cooking, cleaning, sanitation) will be met first for the entire population of the basin and only once these are met shall we move on to the next priority which is water for livelihoods and then the next priority which is environmental flows. Proportional sharing is applied to uses that extend beyond the above mentioned uses (norms would of course have to be reworked in a distress situation) such as commercial farming, industries etc.  The point being conveyed here is that inter-state water sharing will also have to consider alternative paradigms and not base its equitable sharing/distribution by studying the current use patterns which are largely inequitable and embedded within the unsustainable resource use paradigm.   

On a concluding note the overt emphasis on interlinking of rivers at the cost of water for people and environment needs to be reconsidered by reorienting the guidelines for equitable sharing to bring people and environment to the centre.


Lokabhimukh Pani Dhoran Sangharsha Manch