Relevance : GS Paper III
In 2018, NITI Aayog had released its ‘Strategy for New India @75’. This document there is a strategy for water resources.
Requirements of effective water strategy
- Acknowledge and analyse past failures;
- Suggest realistic and implementable goals; and
- Stipulate who will do what, and within what time frame.
Reasons for probable failure of NITI Ayog’s water strategy
- Failed ideas: It reiterates failed ideas such as setting up of river basin organisations and water resources regulatory authority.
- Execution of ideas: Ideas for reforms do not say how these will come about. For example, there is no recommendation to amend the Easement Act.
- Real constraints: It fails to identify real constraints such as PIL filed in NGT, Supreme Court, and High Courts.
- No cognisance of past reforms: It takes no cognisance of effective reforms that were done in past, such as a National Water Framework law.
- Unrealistic goals: Goals such as providing irrigation to all farms; adequate and safe piped water supply to all citizens and livestock; etc. are unrealistic.
Way forward
- It must specify who will be responsible for achieving the specific goals.
- Government needs to plan to arrest the blatant misuse of PIL.
- India’s water establishment needs to admit that the strategy pursued so far has not worked.
Conclusion
NITI Aayog has failed to admit the past failures in water management and has prescribed only a continuation of past failed policies.
