No Water Policy and Plan

The unfailing rhetoric without political leadership is that our State is rich in water resources and we have the capacity of producing enormous quantity of hydroelectricity to make the state self sufficient and even to sell extra power to the neighbouring states. But there are no takers of the bombast because people know that these antics are meant for the simpletons and not for those who understand the tricks of trade. If water is of that importance as is depicted by the leaders is it not logical that they, being the holders of the reins of power, should take all steps to ensure judicious use of power and drawing maximum utility of water resources at our disposal. The entire world knows and accepts that water is a rare commodity and has to be treated as such.
But here is our State that has neither vision nor initiative to draft water policy and plan for the State despite the clear instructions from the High Court and the Cabinet. Both the authorities have clearly stated that the objectives of the Water Policy would be to conserve and manage available water resources in most economical and sustainable manner, drought and flood management on scientific lines, planning and management of irrigation and multipurpose projects involving varied socio-economic aspects, ensuring sustainable and conjunctive use of surface and ground water; promotion, conservation and augmentation of traditional water resources and use of scientific and innovative techniques for prevention and reduction of pollution of surface and ground water resources and improvement in quality of water etc. These are no minor or insignificant objectives that prompted the court and the cabinet to constitute the Cabinet Sub-Committee under the chairmanship of the Deputy Chief Minister to prepare the draft for the policy and plan as discussed above. A number of minister is the members of this sub-committee. Such is the apathy and lack of initiative that not to speak of drafting the policy plan, the committee has not met even once to deliberate on the subject. This shows that the committee is giving water no priority at all.
It has to be stated that the Committee members are not perhaps aware of the impact of scarcity of drinking and irrigation water in kandi and other dry areas of the State. They are not aware of the plight of the people who are suffering on account of scarcity of water. At the same time, it does not bother them if water is wasted wantonly while with certain measures this wastage could be stopped. Pollution of water causes so many diseases that afflict the human beings, cattle and the crops. Who is going to stop pollution and relieve the cattle and crops from great loss owing to spreading of diseases? In the year 2010 Jammu and Kashmir State Water Resources (Regulation and Management) Act was enacted for proper regulation and utilization of water resources. In terms of Section 4 of the Act, the Government was required to prepare the State Water Policy and Plan for the development, management, planning, and utilization and monitoring of water resources in the State keeping in view several objectives laid down in the legislation. However, for seven years there was absolutely no focus on this vital aspect of the law as if Legislation was enacted just to gather dust in the official files. It appears that the Cabinet Sub-Committee is either deliberately avoiding a meeting or that it is incapable of formulating the draft for the policy and plan. Now, as this is the situation and the possibility of the sub-committee finalizing the draft in near future seems rather bleak, it should be possible for the Government to assign the task of drafting he policy and plan to a team of university professors drawn from the disciplines of geology, water resource management, economics and earth sciences and ask them to submit the report within a fixed date. Their report can form the basis on which the Cabinet Sub-Committee would finalize the draft.

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