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The Dam Safety Act, 2021
The asymmetrical arrangements in political and administrative aspects of the act rooted in historico-geographical, institutional, and constitutional obscurities are interrogated, especially emphasising on the amount of authority held by the union government by forming two new bodies—the National Committee on Dam Safety and National Dam Safety Authority.
Projecting up the centripetal inclination of Indian political system, the Dam Safety Act, 2021 has been added as a new chapter. This article posits some significant consequences of the act in the forms of intensifying the process of centralisation of power in the hands of the union government which systematically disregards the peculiar interest of the states over dam construction, maintenance, and water-sharing issues. The article argues that the Dam Safety Act, 2021 instils unequal political–executive power and legal arrangements, which will result in greater disharmony and instability not only in centre–states relations but interstate too. It wages a serious interrogation into the “asymmetrical arrangements in political and administrative” aspects of the act (Rao and Singh 2004), especially emphasising on the amount of authority held by the union government in surveillance, maintenance, operation, and inspection of all the large dams, establishment of the National Committee on Dam Safety (NCDS) as well as the commissioning of the National Dam Safety Authority (NDSA).
Intrusion of Union Government
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