National Water Policy

Ramaswamy Iyer has made a commendable effort to draft a National Water Policy that tries to reform the current unsustainable approach to water resource management in this country (“National Water Policy: An Alternative Draft for Consideration”, EPW, 25 June 2011). I would like to make a few comments on it to further the debate.

It is not possible to manage water resources effectively without a proper estimation of the availability and use of water. This is where a serious problem exists in this country. Reliably measured data on groundwater and surface water availability and use at the local level is absent in most parts of the country. While the central and state groundwater boards have done commendable work in fairly accurately estimating the availability and use of groundwater at the district level there is still a lack of information at the subdistrict level.