Parliamentary committee wants water nationalised

The committee headed by Dip Gogoi said the government should start a discussion with the states and reach a consensus on making water a central or concurrent subject. At present, water is in the State List.

Citing the recurrent disputes between certain states and regions over water sharing, the panel observed that “bringing the scarce resource under the union or concurrent list would help chart a national plan of action for water conservation, development and equitable distribution in the long term”.

The Karnataka government, for instance, has been engaged in legal battles with neighboring states of Tamil Nadu, AP, Goa and Maharashtra over sharing of river waters.
Cautioning against giving free electricity to irrigation pumpsets, the panel said this would lead to over drawal of ground water. The committee suggested creating public awareness about water harvesting and conservation to stop over-exploitation of ground water.

According to the Ministry of Water Resources, the annual extraction of ground water in India (210 cubic km) is the highest in the world and accounts for over 60 per cent of net irrigated area. With the growth in population to 1.21 billion, per capita availability dropped by 70 per cent -from 5,177 cubic metres annually in 1951 to 1,544 cubic metres annually in 2011.

The committee suggested  the government formulate a  national plan to curb the alarming pollution of ground due to excessive mining and effluents discharge. The Ministry data shows that around 1.79 lakh habitations in the country had water problems associated with fluoride, arsenic, iron salinity and nitrate. Of the total 45,019 km length of rivers, as much as 33 per cent was polluted. The major cause of river water pollution was the discharge of as much as 70 of untreated sewage into them.