A New Water Policy For India

Context: India needs to formulate the new water policy as India going through water crisis and for this, a committee was setup in 2019.

Key inputs for new National Water Policy (NWP)

• Comprehensive approach: The policy shall reflect both the emerging realities on the ground, as also the growing understanding of water in the 21st century.
• Respect nature: Amidst the unprecedented environmental crisis, nature is reminding us to acknowledge, with humility, our quintessential equality and inter-dependency.
  • Re-orient development models and consumerism-driven lifestyles: We are living in an inter-connected world and cannot continue with business-as-usual approach in the quest for development and modernisation as every action impacts the environment.
  • Move away from “command-and control” approach: Towards a system that recognise that economy is but a small part of the larger ecosystem.
• Ideas from five key water reforms:
  • Need to break down the silos into which water divided.
  • Respect for immense diversity of India while planning for water.
  • Greater focus on management and distribution of water.
  • Higher priority to recycling and reuse of water.
  • Raising people’s awareness and people’s participation in management of water.
• Focus on strategies of implementation: So that unlike the water policies of the past, the new NWP should not end up as just a token statement.
  • Specific strategies with time-lines, within which key provisions of policy would be implemented.
  • Stakeholder participation: Open workshops with stakeholders concerned before Government of India takes a final view on the NWP drafted by the committee of independent experts.