Central Water Commission to be restructured to link river basins

Chennai:

Central Water Commission said a mechanism has been evolved to expand and restructure it to adopt river basins as the fundamental block for integrated planning, development and management of water resources in the country.

Delivering the 29^th Dr M Visvesvaraya Memorial Lecture here on Monday, Central Water Commission chairman Rajesh Kumar said the Union government is actively considering the proposal for preparation of basin wise integrated water resources development and management plans.

He said the mechanism is to start from the political level to executive level and plan is to have an additional secretary appointed by the Union government as in-charge of the state. He said the state government will be on the board and will also implement the projects.

He said there would be optimum use of water if one follows the basin wise approach. He said inter basin integration will augment water by converting surplus flood water into utilizable water.

On the interlinking of river, he said 16 links have been proposed under peninsular component and 14 links under Himalayan component. He also said the Central Water Commission is also planning to review its National Water Policy. “It was reviewed on 1987 and 2002 and it is time to review it again,” said Kumar.

Kumar also said the draft of National Water Policy, which was prepared after intensive consultation process with policy makers, academia, experts and professional, non government organizations, industries and panchayats, is yet to be adopted by the National Water Resources Council. “The earlier meeting was cancelled and we are planning to put it again in front of NWRC,” he said, adding that once it is cleared it will be circulated among the state governments.

He also stressed on the need to implement guidelines for different uses of water for eg irrigation, drinking, industrial etc particularly in context of basin wise situations. He said CWC has prepared ‘Handbook for computing the Water Use Efficiency (WUE) for Irrigation Projects – 2010’ for guidance to the states.

Kumar said that CWC is also encouraging states to set up Water Resources Regulatory Authorities for equitable water distribution and rationalization of water charges. Only Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh have set up such a body so far, he added.