River rejuvenation and other innovations

The fourth in a series of weekly articles on the new National Water Policy

From time immemorial, the people of India have had a profoundly reverential relationship with rivers, which form an integral part of our social and cultural life. Many regard the water of rivers as holy and imbued with healing powers. However, water policy since Inde­pen­dence has seen rivers primarily as a resource to be deployed to serve economic purposes. This overwhelmingly instrumentalist view of rivers has led to their terrible degradation, so much so that many rivers today have significantly reduced flows and at times have become cesspools of pollution.

The new National Water Policy (NWP) gives the greatest importance to rejuvenation of our river systems. While acknowledging the invaluable economic role rivers play, river protect­ion and revitalisation are ac­c­orded prior and primary importance. For it is now abundantly clear that without policy urgently changing course, let alone serving an economic or any other useful purpose whatsoever, the glory of our rivers will soon become a thing of the past.

Rivers are more accurately denoted as riverscapes, as they are inter-connected hydrological and ecological systems, not limited only to the main stem of the river but also include all different orders of streams and their catchment areas. The NWP suggests that river basins need to be seen as a dynamic equilibrium of Water-Energy-Biodiversity-Sediments. Thus, maintaining the integrity of various basin elements — bio-diversity, landforms, drainage lines, wetlands and aquifers — is crucial.
 

The policy recommends that the river basin, including associated aquifers, be the unit for planning, development and management of water. River Basin Organisations must be conceived as nested organisations built in a bottom-up manner, so that they function as democratic, inclusive, multi-stakeholder platforms. Urgent steps need to be taken to restore flows in rivers: re-vegetation of catchments, strict regulation of groundwater extraction and river-bed pumping, checking ind­i­scriminate mining of sand and boulders and release of enviro­nmental flows downstream of all structures on the main stem and tributaries. Environmental flow assessment must be done for all river basins in a time-bound manner to ensure that rivers have sufficient flows during all seasons of the year, so that they can carry out all their ecological functions, including recharge of groundwater as also nurturing unique, indigenous biota. The NWP clearly recognises that it is impossible to have nirmal dhara (unpolluted flow) without aviral dhara (uninterrupted flow) in our rivers. It also proposes extensive consultations among all stakeholders to draft a Rights of Rivers Act, so that there is comprehensive legal protection for rivers, including their right to flow, their right to meander and their right to meet the sea.

Flood policy since Inde­pen­dence has been focused on large dams and embankments. But the problem has only got worse over time, aggravated by brea­ches in embankments, poorly designed and maintained can­als, as also because settlements have been encouraged on flood plains and drainage lines. Em­bankments have dramatically increased accumulated sediments in rivers of already high sediment load, whose roots lie in massive erosion of their upper catchments. The consequent super-elevated riverbed causes instability in the river and leads to breaches in embankments, further worsening the flood situation. What has aggravated the problem of floods is the destruction of natural pathways of water towards the river or the sea. Blocking these has resulted in flood water entering our homes and workplaces in both rural and urban areas.

The overall approach of flood management must, therefore, shift from “flood control” towards “building resilient life and livelihoods in the context of floods” or “flood-informed development”. “Room-for-the-river” projects should be taken up in flood-prone river systems in a river-specific manner. River Regulation Zones, proposed under the Environment Prot­ection Act, 1986, including prohibited, restricted and regulated activities zones, must be demarcated and notified to regulate development interventions on riverfronts and floodplains.

Acknowledging the pivotal role of women in the stewardship of water and in leading the “spirit of service and ethic of care” advocated by the NWP, the policy features gender in every one of its sections, each imbued with a gender-sensitive perspective, with very specific provisions in that direction. It also has a full separate section on gender, equity and social inclusion to emphasise these much-neglected dimensions. Recognising multiple potential impacts of climate change on water resources following more intense and frequent extreme weather events, the policy proposes a comprehensive agenda of action to meet these challenges. A founding principle of the NWP is that it must reflect India’s enormous diversity. Keeping this in mind, special attention is given to three regions — the Himalayas, rainfed areas and coastal regions — which have tended to suffer neglect in the past, by showing why and how water policy needs to reflect their differentia specifica. On navigation and transport on inland waters, the policy emphasises the need to bring in better regulation, improved systems and investment to ensure safety and more efficient operations. The policy argues that priority be given to passenger and goods transportation of local communities and small trade and manufacturers, which would also boost the local economy and generate employment.

Management of water is gre­atly enhanced when backed by credible data. Des­pite significant rec­ent improvements, such as the India Water Re­source In­formation System, serious gaps still exist in the scope and quality of data. The NWP makes a number of recommendations inclu­ding comprehensive data gathering, with progression to real-time data availability, that seamlessly flows to different stakeholders, as a joint national effort of the central and state governments, research institutions and civil society, in a way that truly represents democratisation of data procurement, an­a­lyses and application. The NWP also outlines a large but focused agenda for water research and lays out the contours of how water education needs to form an integral element of curricula from primary schools right up to the university level.

The writer is Distinguished Professor, Shiv Nadar University. He chaired the Committee to draft the new National Water Policy set up by the Ministry of Jal Shakti in 2019