5 August 2019 OUTLOOK 51
COVER STORY OPINION
W
ATER in Sanskrit is called jeevan, life
itself. A critical ingredient of life, water
makes up 90 per cent of the weight of
some organisms. This is 60 per cent
for humans, and for our brain and heart, 73
per cent. This vital natural resource is being
mismanaged across the world, and quite
noticeably in India. Among its most striking
manifestations was the flood that devastated
Kerala and inflicted heavy economic damage in
August 2018. The two most important factors
that led to this havoc were mismanagement of
water resources under a bureaucratic strangle-
hold and the government machinery’s refusal to
involve people despite the many constitutional
provisions for decentralised decision-making.
In 2011, the Western Ghats Ecology Expert
Panel had pointed out that the prevalent
project- oriented ad hoc approach to water
resources planning and management based
on demand and supply left much to be desired,
and that the time was ripe for a paradigm shift
to management of water resources at the river
basin level, with water being considered inte-
gral part of the natural and human ecosystem.
The panel recommended developing decen-
tralised water management plans at the local
self-government level for the next 20 years,
incorporating appropriate watershed measures
such as afforestation, eco-restoration of catch-
ments, rainwater recharging and harvesting,
storm water drainage, water auditing, recy-
cling and reuse. It envisaged integrating these
local-level plans into basin-level ones.
The panel also recommended rescheduling
reservoir operations in dammed rivers and
regulating river flows to improve downstream
flows, besides using it as a conflict-resolution
strategy. The implementation demands an eff-
ective public monitoring system to be in place.
Other recomendations included initiating
participatory sand and stone quarry auditing
and putting strict regulations in place, so as to
improve the water-retention capacity of rivers;
environment flow assessments involving social
movements for river protection, with research
institutions and NGOs working with communi-
ties putting in place indicators for environmen-
tal flow assessment.
None of these recommendations of the panel
was accepted by the government machinery,
which does not want to accept any account-ability and relinquish its stranglehold on the
management of natural resources, including the
most vital—water. Such undemocratic function-
ing is clearly in violation of our Constitution
and all its provisions for democratic devolution.
Fortunately, this does not go unquestioned
in our open society. There are many volun-
tary efforts by the public to exercise their
constitutional rights to monitor and engage
in the management of natural resources. A
shining example is the River Research Centre
(RRC) that has been monitoring the flows in
Chala kudy, a major river in Kerala, for the past
several years. Chalakudy witnessed unprece-
dented levels of flooding in August 2018.
The RRC group, along with many concerned
local citizens, including elected panchayat
representatives, had been monitoring the flows
since the beginning of the monsoon. There
were heavy rains in July and the many reser-
voirs upstream had been completely filled up.
RRC and others had been constantly warning
the authorities that this was undesirable, and
that there should be regulated releases so as
to retain some storage space in the reservoirs.
The authorities ignored these well-informed
warnings, leading in August to overtopping of
dams like Poringalkuthu. Had the authorities
been responsive, the maximum flood level in
Chalakudy would have been less by at least 2
metres, reducing loss of prope rty substantially.
Kerala leads the country in democratic
devolution of powers and people-oriented
planning and management of natural resources.
It was Kerala that pioneered panchayat-level
natural resource mapping, which led to the
Kalliasseri plan that proposed how prudent
systems of local water resource management
might be revived. It was the Kerala legisla-
ture that recognised the right of Plachimada
panchayat to halt destructive development.
But the government machinery and the many
vested interests it is a handmaiden of have been
resisting honest implementation of a holistic
people-oriented approach.
Local communities have a genuine stake in
the health of their surroundings and, in our
democratic country, it is they who should play
their rightful role and lead the country on a path
of environmentally sustainable, people- friendly
and, in the end, economically sound manage-
ment of natural resources. OMadhav Gadgil
Ecologist who
chaired the
Western Ghats
Ecology Expert
Panel of 2011
Government
machinery
doesn’t want
to let go of its
stranglehold
on the
management
of natural
resources,
such as
the most
vital—water.
Putting local communities on the driver’s seat can change our water future
WATER TO PEOPLE